In plain words
They do not try to recognise what their own duty is. The old keep dwelling only on the past. The young make themselves out to be the ones who will somehow set the world right in the future. As soon as they have passed, as soon as they have a job, … as soon as …, more and more, something or other, … for the sake of the future they waste their lives. What do they do with their studies? Taking up the begging bowl of some degree or other, they go from office to office begging for the alms called a job; why should all these young people not step forward into the service of society? Why should they not set an example to our brothers and sisters? To match this, the parents too lead their children astray. Sending their children needlessly off to foreign lands! What do they long for! Money. Money. They put this intelligence to use only to make money in this way, but make no effort at all to acquire good qualities. When man departs, does he take even a single coin with him! Why should one crave so much for wealth that is not one's own? So the root cause of all the evils is this: the old dwell on the past and the young on the future, but both of them forget the present.
This present is most important. This is present, not ordinary present. This is omni present. Because the result of the past comes in the present. The result of what we do in the present comes in the future. So if the present is good, the country will prosper. Not one of the elders tries to … this. Man, who orders all things, is sinking to ruin today. Man is more precious than everything. To gold, value … man alone. Man alone gives the diamond its value. Man, who gives worth to all, has become worthless. He throws away his own worth. What use is it for such a … man to give value to anything? It is nothing but folly. So first of all we must crush this Ahaṅkāra and this ostentation. Purity, divinity: these we must foster. We must live with patience and fellow-feeling. We must move among our fellow men with Prema. That is the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God. On the day people develop faith in divinity, on that very day our country can rise again. So we must labour for the country. Man today goes only as far as himself and his family, but not as far as society. We must understand the close bond and kinship between society and us. Where would you be without society? Your birth, your growing up, your dying: all of it takes place within society itself.