In plain words
You who are young must try, at this age, to restrain the tongue to some extent. If you do not restrain the tongue, do not restrain the senses, at this very age, your life will have to fill up with a great many sorrows. The prosperity of a country, the well-being of a country, does not rain down from the sky, nor spring up from the earth. The well-being of the world keeps coming about from the conduct of human beings alone. We must recognise clearly that a country is not its soil, and that a country is the very form of the conduct of man. To reform the world is simply to reform our own conduct into the best. So there is no doubt at all that first of all, by practising restraint, whether for this world or for the next, you will surely become worthy of God's grace. To try to restrain the senses at some late day, at a time when all the senses have grown soft, worn out and powerless, is a great disgrace to humanity. If sense control happens at such a time, God's grace may come if it comes; if not, it may not. But when there is sense control in you who are young, there is no doubt at all that God's grace will surely be gained. A small example of this. If you go to a hotel in the morning, say, ‘We want a meal today,’ take tickets and book and come away, then go at 12 o'clock, go at one o'clock: you will surely get a meal. If, instead, you go at exactly twelve or one o'clock and say, ‘I want food,’ they may serve you if some is left; if not, they may tell you there is none. In the same way, if at this age you have booked sense control, as it is called, for what is called God's grace, the food called grace will surely be yours. God's grace is gained only through sense control. Sense control is a price. What is handed to us is the dish called grace, and that very dish is the highest good. Through such sense control, the mark of the sthitaprajña comes to us. Otherwise, though we read many books, listen to the teachings of elders and gather book knowledge of every kind, our assurance that God's grace will come to us may be very slight.