In plain words
Can they not keep their desires in check at least a little? In the āśrama, all their brooding is over family affairs. This can never be true sādhana. However long it takes, the body must be left behind. Money, gold, goods and vehicles cannot but change. He alone is brave who tries to leave them before they leave us. After everything has left us, what is the use of leaving the body in sorrow? What is tyāga? True tyāga is to give up a sacred fruit. Rotten fruit: can anyone call giving that up tyāga? So while there is strength in the body, while the power of the mind is in bloom, while Bhakti is shown, before the noose of Kāla falls upon us, upon our heads, we must take the greatest care and take part in good deeds. This is service of the people. Service of society. Otherwise, life does not become worthwhile merely by strutting about with Ahaṅkāra.
Rāvaṇa was mighty in the strength of his body. He was very rich, having won and gained wealth too. Whether by knowledge, wisdom and right understanding. Or by any other arts called gākarṇaśakarṇas, this Rāvaṇa was a man of great learning. The sense of ‘I’ that arose on seeing all these made him act blind to earth and sky. He was a supreme devotee of Īśvara. What use is there in having so much Bhakti? What use is there in having so much wealth? What use is there in having strength? Only because there was no sacred conduct in his own conduct did he burn to ashes even Laṅkā, which Īśvara had given him. However great a paijñānika one may be, though one has set foot on the moon, if one's foot slips, one breaks into pieces. One falls to ruin. If this Ahaṅkāra enters men, however great the sannyāsīs, however learned the man, however great anyone may be, it brings him down to any low state at all, to ruin. One does not become a sannyāsī merely by putting on ochre clothes. If we believe sannyāsa to be like that, Rāvaṇa put on the false guise of a sannyāsī and carried off Sītā. Arjuna too went to Pramīla in the guise of a sannyāsī to escape the war that had closed in on him. Sannyāsa does not come by the guise alone. Sannyāsa is not in the clothes; it must come in the deeds.
In such matters today we fall prey to many weaknesses, in many ways. What is said is one thing, what is done is another. This is the great folly in humanity. But today Ahaṅkāra has entered every man, more or less; it makes him forget the divine, and he is sinking into the world. He cannot think what will happen in the days ahead. The moment a seed is sown, it does not become a tree and give fruit. For the faults we have committed, for the Asatya we have spoken, for these wrongs, little by little they grow into trees and go on yielding their fruit for a long time after.