In plain words
I know Lakṣmaṇa's purity, but the world does not know it. Once Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā, all three, were resting under a tree. To proclaim Lakṣmaṇa's purity to the world, Rāma laid a small plan. ‘Lakṣmaṇa, I have to go away some distance. You stay right here; this is a very dense forest, and the wiles of the rākṣasas are of many kinds; so, without forgetting even for the wink of an eye, keep watching Sītā alone,’ He said. Lakṣmaṇa took this to be a test. He kept looking at Sītā's feet alone. After a while a bird came and perched on that tree; Rāma had come, taking the form of a bird. ‘Come as any bird, come as any Rāma, I must keep guarding Sītā as I should,’ he vowed to himself. The bird on the tree uttered a śloka. ‘When one sees a very sweet fruit, when we wear a fragrant flower, when one sees a young woman alone, how can a young man stay as he is?’ That was the question it put. Lakṣmaṇa says in reply: ‘No man born of a virtuous father and a chaste mother is moved by this,’ he answered. ‘Only one in whose mother or father there is some fault falls into impure feelings in such a case; but when there are pure and sacred feelings in both, he never stoops to such impure feelings,’ he said. The parrot put another question. ‘When the mind roams like a rutting elephant, that is, in this situation where it forgets good and bad and goes about in mere free wandering, what kind of control can this young man exercise?’ it said. ‘Though it be a rutting elephant, though it roams freely, I can hold it in check with the goad called Jñāna,’ he said. ‘No rutting elephant can do anything to one who has this goad called Jñāna,’ he said. At once the parrot took the form of Rāma: ‘Lakṣmaṇa! It is not for your sake. I know the truth about you. But I tested you in this way to make it known to the world,’ He said.
So only when the young develop such sacred character shall we have made true humanness whole. In our educational institution the chief education is the nourishing of our character. Without it, what use are any number of studies? All these studies are rubbish. However many śāstras, Itihāsas and Purāṇas we read, however many kinds of worldly secrets we discover, if there is no character, this is a life without purpose.