In plain words
This is the first step in the spiritual life. Because there are people today who do not set such sacred service on a sacred path, and who do service without understanding the principle of service, the people of Bhārata are depending on others. To those who serve, the whole country yields. To leaders the country does not yield. The country takes on a hostile form and sets about the effort of bringing the leadership down. When one who knows what service is becomes a leader, he sets about living his leadership within the principle of service itself. No one can become a leader without being a servant, or Śaṅkara without being an attendant. Man is born in society, grows up in society, and progresses through service to society alone; in such a state, if we put service to society away from us, we end up putting our very life away from us. The very moment he is born, the child cries for his mother's milk. That mother without whose milk the child would perish, the mother who is the support of his life: only by serving her, by worshipping his father and by trusting the world does his own life take on leadership. When each person has a mother of his own, all Bhāratīyas must worship the divine Mother, and we must honour the Motherland, render some kinds of service, and so strive to make our lives fulfilled.
In sacred Bhārata, even from time without beginning, great souls imparted such ideals of service in the ṛṣikula āśramas and the gurukula āśramas, and set about reforming the country in many ways. All the gurukula āśramas, every one of them, merely gave wholesome teaching, developed the noblest ideas in people, and shaped each into a sacred human being. The gurukula āśramas gave wholesome teaching only. But the ṛṣikula āśramas, all of them, showed the one to whom they had taught this good the ways of practising actions for the good of the world. The first was teaching, the second practice. But today, if we inquire whether such gurukula āśramas or ṛṣikula āśramas exist, none are to be seen. In the name gurukula, the first letter is gu. In the name ṛṣikula, the first letter is ṛ. Both of these alike are what conferred the dignity of the guru.