In plain words
Help ever hurt never. Holding sayings like these to be coins as precious as life itself, the people of all religions in those days went on living in harmony. They went on believing Satya, Śānti, Prema, forbearance and sympathy to be the five life-breaths of religion. When we discuss matters of religion, we must give no room to argument and counter-argument. The Quran taught too that we must settle them with calm. In just the same way, the purposes and the standards of all religions, their chief goals, are Satya and Dharma themselves. But the people of each religion kept one particular thing as their aim, could not recognise its inner meaning, and went on growing differences of opinion with one another. It is like this: one man says a rupee is 192 pies. 'No, no, a rupee is 16 annas,' another goes on arguing. Another man: this is not right. A rupee is four quarters, he says. Yet another said a rupee is 2 half-rupees. 2 half-rupees, 4 quarters, 16 annas, 192 pies: all are one. Unable to recognise this sameness, they went on thinking and criticising in different ways, each through his own narrow feelings.
The foundation that supports everything is morality. Without moral value, humanity itself does not stand. In those days the population was very small, so they laid down certain strict rules for themselves on the spot and went on enjoying life peacefully. As time changed and the population grew, they went on spreading their own feelings too. In those days the whole world had a population of five crores. Today the whole world together has 550 crores. With the change of time, the feelings of morality and honesty too went on growing thin. A small example of this. All of you know it. Gandhi and some other individuals all joined together under the name of the Congress to win freedom in Bhārata-deśa, and went on defying the foreigners. That may have been up to fifty or fifty-five years ago. Within that time alone, how many names the Congress has changed! Its names went on changing according to the influence of individuals. First the Old Congress, second the R Congress, third the S Congress, fourth the I Congress. In this way these names went on changing according to the strength of one individual and another. How much further still they will go! They will go all the way from A to Z.
If these religions, which began some thousands of years ago, have changed this much, that is no greatness. It is because it is the Sanātana Dharma, which followed the traditions of right conduct of the people of Bhārata, that it has gone on blossoming brightly from time without beginning, with no changes and no additions. The Sanātana Dharma is not for the people of Bhārata alone.