So today many, 99% of all, waste their time in icchā-śakti alone. Today we go on arguing for and against with dry Vedānta alone. But we take no step forward at all in putting it into practice or in carrying it out. We try only to recite doctrines by rote, but we too take no step forward. We try only to recite doctrines by rote, but we do not set out at all to put even some of it into practice. Carrying out the practice matters more than setting out doctrines; today our sādhana matters more even than our goals; only when we give to sādhana even a thousandth part of all our striving for the goal will we reach the goal. Every student frets, ‘I must pass in the 1st Class.’ He keeps thinking of the goal. But he only wishes; is he making the effort and the labour it takes to come in the first class? So if, with the hope of coming in the first class, he puts a thousandth part of it into his practice, he can come in the first class; in the same way, today in the world of believers, on the spiritual path, on the sacred path of Bhakti, hopes are growing beyond measure, but we do not follow the path that goes with those hopes. For the sake of this daily practice of karma, Lord Kṛṣṇa set it out in many ways as a guide in the Bhagavad Gītā, and gave the people the Gītā itself as the chief thread, as a staff to lean on, as a backbone. Yet in our lives we go forward in many ways to harm other creatures, to hurt them, to wound them. Only in the hearts of those whose hearts stand full of compassion do the plants of Bhakti and prapatti grow. In brackish ground (Salty Soil), however strong the seeds you sow, they will not grow into plants. If we are to recognise the pains, the sorrows and the troubles of others, we must make our heart a pure mirror. If we have soiled our heart and filled it with bad qualities, and say we cannot see other people's pain, how could it be seen? The day we recognise the pains, troubles and worries of others, that very day God will try to recognise our worries; life must not be brought to its end in selfishness alone. What is joined with divine equanimity: that alone is for the good of others. So Kṛṣṇa taught such divine paths, led people on noble paths, and taught the gracious principle. He showed that this is our duty. Even if we gain nothing of any kind from it, this body was born for us to do karma, and time too has been given us to make this body fruitful: Kṛṣṇa made known the threefold lesson of these three.