In plain words
Only in the search for the Ātma can we recognise true Ānanda. Diseases, sorrows and pains, all of them, wearing the dress called pleasure, chase after us and keep tormenting us in many ways. It is quite natural for us to change the dress we have put on from time to time. In just the same way, the pleasure, or the joy, or any other kind of delight that comes our way is like a dress: it gives joy only for the moment, and the next moment it subjects us to pains of many kinds. Truly, in such a world, when we see a person said to be passing his time in peace and happiness, it is a great wonder. However rich he may be, however learned, however much position and authority he may have, he appears outwardly, in some show or other, as if all were well with his comfort and happiness; but inside, a great deal of pain, responsibility, and the pressure of certain duties too set about tormenting him in many ways. That is why this age is so important in the search for the Ānanda of Advaita, in which we experience eternal Ānanda.
Today, whatever we take to be the best deeds in the world, every one of them appears to us as a laughable deed. The greater part are people who give no thought at all to this world and the next, and do not think even of the dharmic deeds fitting for it. But even those who do think of it keep their own sacrifice very small, let no spirit of sacrifice at all come into the many things they spend on, and, for the sake of reaching the other world, spread their feelings just a little into the practice of Dharma: such people too are very many. Seeing such people, we think them very great. Those who have wasted lakhs for their own enjoyments and riches, for the adornment of their own bodies, we believe to be men of great intelligence. As time moves on and the body changes, people who do not recognise their duty and have dedicated their lives to desires we take to be great, and we honour them. For bodies that dance every moment in the mouth of death, we hold birthday celebrations and rejoice.