In plain words
Man himself. Whatever precious things there are in the world, the one who sets their value is man himself. Man, who sets the value of everything, has today lost his own value. The reason is that he has forgotten his own true nature. Forgetting their true nature, believing in nothing but a kind of form of feeling, people have been taking refuge only in the outer upādhi. They do not recognise the truth that in this very body, impermanent and transient, there is the eternal, true and pure Divinity. In the body itself is the dweller in the body. In the śarīra itself is the śarīrī. In this kṣetra itself is the kṣetrajña. If there were no kṣetrajña, the kṣetra would have no value at all. But people give value to the cart called the kṣetra. But they do not feed the horse called the kṣetrajña. If you put the horse behind and set the cart in front, how can the journey go on? In just the same way, today man puts behind him the Ātma-tattva which is Divinity, and puts in front only the body, which is like the cart, and so goes on the journey of life. And so he is unable to reach the goal. So we must try to recognise, through this Veda, the sacredness in humanness. Veda means the very form of knowledge. It is vidyut-karaṇa, the essence of knowledge. The Veda has been showing the oneness that the Veda, the Vedāṅga and the knower of the Veda, all three, are one. Just as the oneness of dhyāna, dhyeya and dhyāsa comes about for us, in the same way the oneness of the three, Divinity, purity and the principle of Prakṛti, is attained by us.
So every man must bring the three together: the feelings that arise in him, the words that fit the feelings, and the actions that fit the words. This itself is "The proper study of mankind is man." So it has been said. What does man mean? He must make his thoughts, words and actions, all three, one. That itself, in the Vedic mantra,
The three-leaved, shaped as the three guṇas, the three-eyed, bearing three weapons, destroying the sins of three births: a single bilva leaf offered to Śiva.
they said. It was said with this in mind. Patraṃ, the leaf: our body. Puṣpaṃ, the flower: our heart; phalaṃ, the fruit: our mind. Tōyaṃ, the water: our tears of Ānanda. It asked us to offer these to God. Today in the world there is the man of wealth. There is the man of virtue. There is the man of strength. There is the man of learning, but the man of the Ātma is nowhere to be seen. Forgetting the feeling of the Ātma, will this wealth, strength and virtue stand by you for very long? Our bodily strength is just like a flower that opened at daybreak and withers by evening: the body grows old. The strength of our body and our property: no one knows when they will go and when they will come.