In plain words
As its foremost path, it is following this path of freedom called these upheavals. What is the root cause of these two contrary results? On one side, knowledge with Viveka growing in abundance; on the other, the world thrown into turmoil by needless fears and alarm: what is the root cause of this contrary growth?
However much Ajñāna grows, Jñāna too keeps it company. However far Jñāna develops, Ajñāna too moves along just as far, as its shadow. What is the reason for what we call this union of Jñāna and Ajñāna? What is the root cause of man's heart turning cruel, in morals and in Dharma? Today's experiences are following a stranger path than the experiences of the past. In man today, more than in the past, bad qualities, bad ways and cruelty too are on the increase. When we look deep and enquire into the reason for this, the root cause of it is just this: animality still lingers in man. In … 5,500 years, fifteen thousand wars have taken place: what is the reason for this? Even to this day this fear of war has not left man in the least. Through these very wars the noble zest in humanness is wasting away day by day. Through these wars, life has come to have no value for man. With the dread of not knowing at what minute, when, at which moment, in what circumstances he may have to leave this life, his standard of life, little by little he is wasting away in a kind of dread. Truly, wars alone are the root cause of the weariness that enters man's standard of life. Not only wars within, not only wars without: the influence of the circumstances around us too is turning into a fear of war.
Day by day man's Buddhi is taking on a selfish form. As long as this selfishness and self-interest remain, man cannot find joy in society. He cannot give it. If he wants to go to a film, man is carried away by the selfish thought, “The first seat must come to me alone.” Even in a bus, even in a queue, man wishes that the first seat should come to him alone. When he has a group photograph taken: “It does not matter how the others look in that photograph; where is my figure?” So he keeps only his own figure in view. Examination results come out in the daily paper, some thousands of numbers in all. Look at that paper, and wherever you look, you see nothing but numbers.