In plain words
We perform these only because we want passing pleasures. Prema alone brings us directly to God. We must look on all with Prema. We must see the form of Prema that is in all. A man without Prema is not to be found in the world. We may give Prema any number of forms, any number of names. But Prema is just one. Just three obstacles come in the way of attaining such Prema. Who are those enemies? Desire, anger and greed. These, desire, anger and greed, take the form of the worst enemies and bind the sādhaka in every way. The Rāmāyaṇa, the Bhārata and the Bhāgavata, these three, were made for the very purpose of destroying these three. In the Rāmāyaṇa, Rāvaṇa took on the form of desire. Through this very desire he destroyed himself and his own lineage. Desire grew, twined itself round him and became a noose for this Rāvaṇa. He destroyed his very lineage. He shattered his own race. This is the chief point we must note in the Rāmāyaṇa.
In the Bhāgavata, Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu lived in nothing but hatred. Hiraṇyakaśipu was a hater of Hari. This anger is a thing that burns. But what sort of man was Hiraṇyakaśipu? Among the scientists of that time, he had power beyond measure. He carried out research everywhere. He brought the five elements under his hand. ‘Where is God, where?’: so he combed the whole ocean. He moved through the waters like a fish. He flew through the sky like a bird. What use is it to gain so many powers? These are all physical powers. Once God is forgotten, what use is it to have any number of them? Hero becomes zero if he forgets God. What use is it to gain any number of powers in which God is forgotten? His anger went beyond all bounds precisely because he forgot God. For one who has this anger, all is hardship and loss, blame and reproach. They cannot win a good name in society at all. To his own son or to his wedded wife, he turns into nothing but an enemy.
For one who has anger, nothing he does bears fruit; harm comes upon him; doing sinful deeds, he is sure to be told ‘Chi! Be gone!’, mark this.
It shatters one’s wealth, burns away the honour one has, brings harm on one’s own people; through anger, people lose everything.
That is why Hiraṇyakaśipu, in the very end, without even the Prema of ‘this is my own son’, put his son through every kind of torment. In the Bhāgavata, Hiraṇyakaśipu is the symbol of anger.
In the Bhārata, the great miser is Duryodhana. He gave not the least chance to those who had the right, to those who bore the responsibility. Though the Pāṇḍavas were embodiments of Dharma, he turned miser and would not give them even as much ground as a needle’s point can rest on. He tried to enjoy what was declared not his own.