In plain words
subsided, surging forth once again, drew all these various religious sects into its own vaster form. To love such an all-knowing, all-powerful principle of the Ātma — the state of the highest truth — to love it alone is to worship him. The Ātma alone is man's one and only beloved. To regard It as dearer than everything that exists in this world and the next — to hold this view is to worship him — this alone is the Veda's teaching. What the Vedas propounded is not some dreadful mass of harsh rules, nor is it a prison built of cause and effect. Rather, they propound that there is One, the Lord of all these laws, who abides and shines in every atom of physical substances and physical forces, and that by his command alone the five elements each perform their own tasks. This alone is the doctrine of Prema propounded in the Vedas.
Just as the lotus-leaf, though it arises in water, is never wetted by that water, so must man live in this world — that is the highest truth. To love God while expecting a reward, whether in this world or the next, is good enough in itself; but since there is nothing dearer than God, to love him alone with a desireless Prema is the highest form of loving — that too is the inner meaning of this teaching. That is to say, to feel that I hold Prema only for the sake of loving God — this way of thinking is the Bharatiya conception of the highest truth.
For this, look to the Mahabharata's own ideal, Dharmaraja. He had been Bharat's emperor, and after being defeated by his enemies and losing his kingdom, while dwelling with Draupadi in mountain caves in the Himalayan region, Draupadi said to him one day, "My lord! Why has such a terrible calamity befallen you, foremost as you are among those devoted to righteousness in this world?" And as she grieved so, Dharmaraja replied: "Draupadi! Do not grieve. Look at these Himalayan mountains — with what sublime splendour, what greatness of beauty they shine! I take boundless delight in them. They give me nothing at all — but their sublimity,