In plain words
From ancient times Bhārat has been bringing lasting peace and security to every country through spreading the spiritual principle. Then as now, the Hindu tradition has been nothing but "May all the worlds be happy." To develop this tradition and this culture, the kings, ṛṣis, sages, scholars and chaste mothers of those days sacrificed their lives. The emblem of that sacred culture is the story of Rāma. This has been called by the name Rāmāyaṇa. But Rāmāyaṇa does not mean the story of Rāma alone. "The path of Rāma: that is the Rāmāyaṇa." Ayana means path. To follow the path of Rāma is the inner meaning of the Rāmāyaṇa.
From the day he is born, man makes efforts of many kinds to uphold the tradition and culture of his life. At birth he is without any connection to bad qualities and is of a nature free of all qualities. As time moves on, as food changes, as tastes grow, through the faults of the company he keeps, men's dress and speech change too. Rāga and dvēṣa take their place. Along with education, Ahaṅkāra and pride spread from head to foot and run riot. He imagines that there is no one greater or better than himself. Drunk with the intoxication of youth, he looks on the person before him as lower than a blade of grass.
If man is to live as man, he has to face many hardships and losses, and misfortunes. He has to bear the blows that come against him and go forward. But to the man of today sense pleasures look like a feast. Everyone lives with many kinds of desires: to become a great scholar, to become a leader, to become a big businessman. He tries to build his life in the shade of desires alone. He cannot stay even a single moment without desire. Though he has within him the principle of the Ātma, which is divinity, he falls under impure sense pleasures and forgets his humanness.
Animals and birds, all of these, do enjoy happiness. But they have neither the selfishness that hoards nor the wickedness that robs. Man's is not a nature that eats and is content. Each wanting to grow beyond the other, they keep drawing up five-year plans. They strive to amass wealth that will not run out though five famines come and five generations pass. Having desires is not wrong. But desires must not exceed the limit. "Avoid excess in everything." Excessive desires ruin the mind. In such a state man must rouse the divinity within him a little.