In plain words
Time is endless; the world is vast; life alone comes to an end! In this very brief span you are given to live, put the learning of the Vedas into practice, rejoice, and experience the principle of the Ātma. This itself is the way to a life fulfilled.
Dharma, …, can never be merely a private matter. “Dharma is the foundation of the whole universe”: it holds together nothing less than the whole world. Dharma gives the joys of this world and the next and drives sorrow far away; Dharma grants human beings immortality itself. All the karmas in the world, the seen and the unseen, rest on Dharma alone. Not even the smallest thing can stand without Dharma; not even the smallest deed can come about without the support of Dharma. Any nation at all, whether it recognises it or not, must take refuge in Dharma alone if it would win success.
The people of Bhārata have divided Dharma into two and have kept it so down the ages. One is the common Dharma: following and practising Satya, Ahiṃsā, compassion and the other virtues, which every human being must keep, without distinction of caste, creed or sex. The second is the special Dharma: the fire rites such as the Agniṣṭoma, and the homas. Fire sprang from Divinity; brāhmaṇya too sprang from the mouth of the Divine Person. So both of these are holy; without fire no yajña and no yāga bears fruit. Fire, the Gāyatrī, the Vedas: every one of these springs from nothing less than a portion of Prajāpati.
All over Bhārata, and in the other countries of the world as well, thousands of the suffering and of seekers, not setting their sights on worldly comforts and pleasures alone, crane their necks and toil to win faith in God, peace of mind and lasting Śānti; that is no secret to you. There is a notion that spiritual inquiry, spiritual matters and spiritual sādhanas apply only to the individual and concern the individual alone, and that society has nothing to do with them. This is a great mistake. It is not beyond reach to raise up society precisely through the individual, and to make its peace, welfare and well-being secure. To think that you need light only for moving about inside the house, and need no light for going about outside, is wrong! The growth of society needs the principle of the individual; and the happiness and Śānti of the individual do need the principle of society. Is society not simply a gathering of individuals? Eternal Ānanda can flow through the individual, fill the lake called society, and find its end in the ocean of grace. Society has no physical body of its own. Only the individuals who are its limbs have form and name. Without the individual himself, there is no way to establish society. If we shape and refine the individual, the state of society rises high. To establish Sai organisations in many forms, so as to turn humanness into Divinity, win eternal Ānanda, carry out teaching and spreading that take the form of practice, and hand that high state on to the whole world: that very thing is the Sai Saṅkalpa. Yet although Sathya Sai … have been established by the thousands, not only in Bhārata but in other countries too, we are failing to reach the ideals we hoped for.