In plain words
As soon as the work we came for is done, we simply must go back to where we came from. There is no way but to go back. Forgetting where we came from, and not knowing where we must reach, we are wasting our time. We cannot say where, or in which moment, the life in us will go. So, for as long as we are here, we must gather as much purity as we can gather and lead an ideal life.
In the world today the thirst for wealth and for power is going beyond all bounds. It is precisely because this goes beyond bounds that the very minds of men are going bad. Even the ocean, which keeps the world green with crops, gives food and drink to every living being and is the ground on which all rests, stays within a limit. If it crosses this limit, there is nothing but deluge. Even so fathomless an ocean stays humble and restrained and gives happiness and peace to the countless living beings. With us too, it is only when we keep our desires under control that they can give us happiness and peace. If we let our desires grow beyond bounds, we shall have to suffer the opposite result.
The fame of the ancient maharṣis spread through the world because of their conduct alone. If we wish to gain fame and honour of that kind, our ways must be good. However many degrees we take, if our conduct is not right, all of it is useless. All things are there in the world. But since all these are things that change, all of them are only emptiness. Jagat: ja, being born; gat, changing. It is because it is what is born and what passes away that it is called jagat. What we cannot see, we think of as emptiness. But in truth that very emptiness is everything.
We receive the fruit according to our karma. Births come only to live out the karma we have desired. Among actions, desireless action brings two blessings. One is purity of the citta. The second is the rooting out of desires. To reap the fruit of actions done with desire, there is birth again and death again. When, then, are we to attain the eternal, true and stainless principle where there is no more coming and going?
That is why, along with worldly learning, we must taste a little of spiritual learning too. We must experience it, delight in it and share it out to all. This itself is the aim of life. To reach this goal of life, age does not matter; age belongs to the body. The Ātma has no age. It has no form. It is Ānanda and nothing else. For the sake of this Ānanda, we must develop ideal desires. Women who are to become mothers must nurture a pure life. Carrying the family on the shoulder and the Lord of all in the heart, they must lead an ideal life. Even while living in this world made of clay, we must attain that which is made of Consciousness. The pot is born from clay. In the pot there is clay. But in the clay there is no pot. That is just what Consciousness in what is made of clay means. There are so many who go to see the chariot festival and end up looking at the women and at the crowds that throng there. In the chariot we must see the form that is all Consciousness. The body is the chariot in which God is taken in procession. It is a temple where God is installed, a holy place, a sacred tīrtha.
A king, it seems, called the villagers, gave each of them a goat and told them to raise it well.