In plain words
Eminent ones devoted to Dharma! Receive blessings. From the time I reached Prasanthi Nilayam, I resolved to write you this sweet letter. But many devotees had come, even from far-off places, and were waiting, so there was some delay in calming them and sending them on their way.
Embodiments of the divine Ātma! For once, open your eyes and look closely at our ancient, most exalted state. Examine well, for once, the sorry state of man today. Is our state not like that of a man who has fallen from a mountain top? In those days, through Dharma, we had reached the highest state in everything, in spiritual, material, scientific and economic matters alike. Following with the deepest reverence the Dharma ordained by the Śrutis and Smṛtis, which are the very form of God's command, and moving among one another in mutual goodwill, we had reached the very summit of civilisation. Today, though, we have come to a state turned utterly upside down. Spiritually, scientifically, economically, whichever way you look, men are in a very low state. The Dharmas that the Lord ordained through the Śrutis and Smṛtis, with the aim of raising men up, have been cast aside. Spewing out feelings of cruelty in mutual hatred, we are shattering the peace of the world. Transgressing God's commands is precisely the chief cause of this lack of peace in the world.
Is not the transgressing of Dharma, which is the very form of God's command, the chief cause of today's poverty, feebleness and want of spiritual Jñāna? All of us can rejoice that some, now at least, have made sure of this by weighing agreement and difference, and are striving to raise up Dharma, the cause of the world's welfare. It is surely a principle all accept, that where the ruin of one thing ruins another, guarding the first is itself the chief way to guard the second! At present we are watching just that: the peace of the world destroyed through the waning of Dharma. When we mean to bring about the welfare of the world, surely the chief duty is precisely to raise up that Dharma!
Teachers! Even now, at least, to wake up and strive for the protection of Dharma is the chief duty. Today some are setting out to root out the Dharma of Bhārata completely. We have to confront their efforts. If we do not offer just such resistance, Dharma can be wiped out.
Some, carried away by infatuation with civilisation, bear the honoured name of “social reformers” and try in many ways to make society itself a stranger to Dharma and so ruin it.