- That only God is real, all else is unreal. Thinking this way is discrimination. ‘Real’ means eternal, and ‘unreal’ means transient.
- Live in the world like an ant. In the world is both the True (nitya; the absolute; the eternal) and the transitory, all mixed up, just as sugar is mixed with sand. Be an ant and take only the sugar.
- Water and milk are mixed together, and so are spiritual joy and worldly pleasures. Like a swan, you must take only the milk and leave the water.
- Be like the waterfowl. When water touches its body, it flutters its wings and shakes it off. Or become like a mud fish. It lives in mud, but look at its body: it is clean and shines brightly.
- In the world (gol-mal) there is indeed a mixture of truth (mal) and make-believe (gol). Discard the make-believe and take the truth.
- The Absolute is the identical substance from which you derive the concept of the individual soul and the world. The phenomenal must be traced to that very Being, the Absolute must be traced.
- There is no danger of thorns, if one is wearing shoes. One has no fear of ‘lust and greed’ when one knows that ‘God is the only Reality and all else ephemeral.’
- Is it that He is visible only when you shut your eyes, and He does not exist when you don’t? The Absolute belongs to the same Reality as the phenomenal world; the phenomenal world belongs to the same Reality as the Absolute.
- A pure-hearted devotee sometimes dwells on the Absolute and at times on the phenomenal world. The Absolute and the phenomenal belong to the same Reality. It is all one – neither two nor many.
Absolute
- Shakti cannot be thought of apart from Brahman, nor can Brahman be thought of apart from Shakti. Nitya (the Absolute) and lila (the relative phenomenal world) cannot be thought of apart from each other.
- The Absolute belongs to the same Being as the phenomenal world, and the phenomenal belongs to the same as the Absolute.
- It is very difficult to understand that He is both limitless and limited. The Absolute belongs to the same Being as the phenomenal world.
- In worldly life sugar and sand are mixed together. Like an ant, you must leave the sand and sift out the sugar. Only the adept can sift the sugar out. Arrange for a solitary place to contemplate Him – a place for meditation.
Phenomenal
- There is a way out, yet the fish do not escape. The silkworm dies in its own secretions. This world is unreal, it is impermanent.
- If you live in the world after knowing Him, the world is no longer ephemeral.
- All this is transitory – home, family and children are all for two days. Only the palm tree is real. One or two fruits have dropped from the tree. Why sorrow for them?
- Rakhal and others know very well what is right and what is wrong, what is real and what is unreal. If they lead a family life, they do so intentionally. Rakhal has a wife and a son has been born to him too, but he has understood that all this is illusory and perishable. Rakhal and others will not get attached to the world. They are like mud fish. It lives in mud but its body is not stained by the mud.