In plain words
Only at such times does God come to mind. If there were no hardships, no one would wish for comforts. It is the hardships that bring comfort. A pleasure is an interval between two pains. Man finds happiness only between two pains. In Telugu too many people use these words: "When trouble comes, Venkataramaṇā!" Before that they never remember Venkataramaṇa's name at all. Once trouble begins, they cry out, "Venkataramaṇā!" So it is in times of hardship, times of sorrow, times of worry, times of pain, that one can remember God the more. Children do not long for God at any other time as they do at examination time. The reason is that God's grace is most needed to solve their problems. The prayers prayed when one wants a seat are no longer there once the seat is won. So man's mind is joined with these vikalpas. These śāpas too took shape for them as gifts of grace. Truly, but for those śāpas, this king of elephants would not have turned his sight to God. As our sight, so the creation. As our feeling, so our result. As the flour, so the bread. As the food, so the belch. Beyond this, no change or difference can come about in the decrees of creation. So we must do good and enjoy good. To do bad and want to enjoy good is not possible. If you eat bitter gourds and want the smell of good mangoes full of fragrance, will it come? So we must be ready for the result of whatever we do. So the words these great souls resolved upon, meaning to make faultless those of high station who do wrong, came in the form of a śāpa; they were not given from any true, heartfelt wish to punish them. Every one of these śāstras has gone on showing such decrees and handing them on to man.
At one time they laid down certain rules for the heads of the maṭhas. For Udayabhāskar, who was the eleventh Śaṅkarācārya, they set a band of guards before his door while he sat rapt in dhyāna: "Tasmāt jāgrata, jāgrata, tasmāt jāgrata jāgrata..." They laid down the rule that these words be called out moment by moment.