In plain words
So we must make the right effort to fill our heads with sacred thoughts, with a virtuous character, with divine Jñāna. We must not, instead, set about filling them with all the many tainted worldly things that go on in the world, and with stale, rotting old traits. This very thing the Bhagavad Gītā too: “My dear one, the impure feelings that have gathered in you cannot be put right all at once. Bring them round slowly, slowly onto the right path,” it has been teaching. What is the effort to bring down, little by little, the traits that in some measure stir up such a path? If you offer your heart to the grace of God alone, to the Prema of God, then and only then do all these cool down little by little and begin to subside. But at times we think: how can we ever get free of bad qualities that have taken root so deeply? We even grow weak, thinking, ‘This will never happen in my lifetime.’ We must give no room to such weakness. With proper effort and a firm grip we must strive to achieve it. Good habits or bad habits, they grew through our own practice alone; they did not drop into our heads all of a sudden. Habits alone are the root cause of good and of bad. So, keeping in mind the very kinds of practice by which they grew out of hand, we must dedicate this life to practice of that same kind and make the right effort to cut back those overgrown habits. For this, a little story.
Wearing Down Bad Qualities Little by Little through Practice
A man had got into the habit of eating opium all the time. But he could not bring it under control. Always in a stupor, he went on ruining his health. While he was in this weak state, a great soul came to that village. At that time all the villagers, every one of them, went to have the darśan of that great soul. With those crowds this man too went to have the darśan of the great soul. One by one they would tell him their troubles, their losses, their illnesses and suchlike sorrows, listen for a while to the great soul's teachings, receive his instructions and come away.