In plain words
When you want others to respect you, surely you must respect others! When you want others to be humble and obedient to you, surely you too must be humble with others! When you want others to trust you, surely you must trust others! They want everything to be “one way traffic”, but they do not follow the way of give and take.
The obstacle of the future
Because of these narrow feelings, these selfish feelings, differences of opinion arise even about God. Īśvara lives in the cremation ground. He eats out of a skull. He has no house, no home. Snakes are His only ornaments. How can He, who has nothing of His own, protect others? Viṣṇu found no room anywhere in this world and lay down in the ocean. “With no house and no home, with no tie at all to people, how can He protect the world?” they ask. This is the obstacle of the future. Through bad feelings of this kind, Ahaṅkāra grows. Thinking there is no one greater than themselves, they carry on blind to everything, and peace of mind vanishes. Only oneself must be happy in life. No one must cause one any pain. Though one hurts others, that does not matter! Narrow feelings of this kind become obstacles. In this way there are three obstacles in the world.
The regimen matters most
There is a practice in the world. To be rid of an illness, you must take medicine. Taking the medicine is necessary, and keeping to the regimen is even more necessary than that. If you merely take the medicine and do not keep to the regimen, there is no benefit. For the illness of worldly existence, man must take the medicines called the path of karma, the path of Bhakti, the path of Jñāna and the path of yoga. But for this he must keep to the regimen too. Śānti, forbearance, sympathy and Prema are the regimen.