In plain words
alone. If one speaks concerning the Ātma, the notions of woman and man become forms of illusion; only in speaking concerning the body do they have any place at all. The matter of age is exactly the same — the Ātma does not age. This ancient Person always remains one and the same. How, then, did the Ātma come down into bondage? Our scripture has one single answer to this question: ignorance alone is the cause of this entire state of bondage. It is by the cause of ignorance alone that we became bound. Jñāna alone is its remedy — it carries us across to the far shore. How is that Jñāna obtained? By way of Prema, by way of devotion — by loving all souls, who are temples of Īśvara, he comes to dwell within every one of them. Ignorance departs, the bonds snap away, and the Ātma attains liberation. Concerning Īśvara, two views exist in our scriptures: the saguṇa view and the nirguṇa view. The saguṇa Godhead means that he, being all-pervading, is for everything its creator, sustainer, and dissolver, and remains the mother and father of the world; but he does not remain eternally different from us or from all souls. This very true nature of the Ātma is what people call liberation. That is, to recognize that non-difference of essence is itself liberation; to dwell in that alone is liberation.