In plain words
In this way, for those who are in Bhārata to be quite unable to recognise our śāstras, our culture, our sādhana, our morality and honesty, and to go abroad merely for higher studies, is a shameful thing. While foreigners come to Bhārata, wishing to recognise well and to know the matter of Bhāratīya culture, and show śraddhā and Bhakti of many kinds, what madness it is that the people of Bhārata, living in Bhārata itself, cannot recognise their own culture!
So the chief thing in Bhāratīya culture is one quality. From ancient times in our Bhārata they gave great importance to this character, that is, to śīla. That is why, in former times, taking the culture as their ground, they believed that if this character went, life went. If character is lost everything is lost. If wealth is lost nothing is lost. If health is lost something is lost. These are the chief maxims of Bhāratīya culture. But today, as a car has a reverse, the moment this modern life began, things have been going the opposite way. If character is lost nothing is lost. If health is lost something is lost. If wealth is lost everything is lost. This is dhanamūlam idaṃ jagat. Is this our true Bhāratīya culture? Dharmamūlam idaṃ jagat: this is the true culture of the people of Bhārata. No one at all is stepping forward to protect Dharma. But they step forward to practise Adharma. That is why the land is turning into one full of sin. So we must not fall prey to sin. We must practise merit. In Bhāratīya culture, this very thing:
Men want the fruit of merit, but they do not want merit; they do not want the fruit of sin, yet they do sin with effort.
That is, we keep saying that to do merit is very good. We hope for merit. But we do not do meritorious karmas. Without doing meritorious karmas, how will the fruit of merit come? We say, ‘I do not want the fruit of sin.’ But we do sinful karmas; when we have done sinful karmas, the fruit of sin does not go away because we say we do not want it, does it! So as the karmas we do, so is the result that comes to us. So every person must set about doing sacred karmas. We must try to recognise how sacred this humanness is.