In plain words
Nothing goes with one. If they were one’s own, why should they not go with one? A certain man was bathing in the Godāvarī river. A stick with a golden handle came floating down the current. He saw the stick. Aha! My luck has ripened today. ‘That is why a golden handle has come into my hand,’ he thought. Meaning to take it after his bath, he threw the stick up onto the bank. He went under the water, saying ‘Namaḥ Śivāya, Namaḥ Śivāya.’ While he was bathing, the stick, because the bank had its rises and dips, rolled over and over little by little and fell into the river. When he came up again and looked, the golden-handled stick was not there. He grieves and grieves. ‘Alas, my golden-handled stick has floated away down the river!’ he grieves. Was it his grandfather’s property? Did he earn it? Did he bring it? It turned up in the river. It went back into the river. To think ‘This is mine’: that is his chief bondage. For two minutes it gave him joy. In the third minute it gave him sorrow. ‘Never mind; at least for these two minutes it came into my hand.’ ‘I saw that golden handle’: had he been content with that, how happy he would have been! Had he been able to be content, thinking ‘I did not bring it from home’, that golden stick would truly have remained his. Today a man longs to become a lakhpati, a crorepati. The one who has become a crorepati longs to become a King. Once he becomes a panchayat president, he says straight away that he must become an MLA. Once an MLA, he says he must become a Minister. Then, once a minister, he says he must become an M.P. After that he longs to become Prime minister. He never gives a thought to enjoying with contentment what has come to him and doing his own duty.
In the same way every man today, being discontented, fights only for his rights. But he does not look to Responsibilities. That is why he turns discontented. All his life he wilts and wastes away in this discontent and falls to pieces. So tṛpti is most necessary for every man. Such a man alone is great in all the world. That very question Śaṅkarācārya too put to himself: who is great in this world? Who is the richest man in this world? He who has much satisfaction is the richest man. Who is the poorest man in this world? He who has much desires is the poorest man. That is why we must rise to a higher level. When we wish to attain the place of God, this contentment is most necessary. Vivekānanda, Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṃsa, Tulasīdās, Rāmadās, Kabīrdās: all such dāsas lived their lives in just this way in the past. At times they found no food at all to eat. Then: ‘God is giving me a fine opportunity; God is bidding me join the vow of fasting.