In plain words
Paying them no heed, in its yearning to sip that drop it keeps entering into it …. This gives a fine teaching to sādhakas. 'Foolish one! If you wish to achieve your goal, you will not count the world's blame, or its reproaches, or its hardships, or its sorrows. If the goal truly stands firm in you, you will not count them at all. Face all of these and enjoy it yourself,' so the cātaka bird gives its fine teaching.
Every object too, every creature too, keeps teaching man so that he may reach a high state. Look at the trees. They bear sun and rain and give shade to all; if we look at the …s, they endure many kinds of hardship themselves and take on a … useful to man. And if we look at the birds: O crazy man! Why do you suffer so many kinds of hardship to fill a belly a span wide? You till the land. You carry out many other kinds of work besides. You raise crops and feed your belly yourself. We do no trade, we do no vāsēdyamu. He gave us wings, He gave us bellies. When the wings beat the belly is filled; when the belly is filled the wings beat. So we fetch what each meal needs as it comes, eat it with joy and live in peace. You need not suffer torments in this way for the sake of your belly. He gave you two hands and gave you one belly. If you work with two hands, can you not fill one belly! You do not work to the full with both hands. That is why your belly is shrivelling: do your duty. Carry out your own karma yourself. That is your duty. Seeing this as our duty, we must enter into karma. You are children. You have come here for the sake of education. In the work we have come for, we must set the right goal, and every single day ask ourselves again whether we are in the … of achieving it or not.
Our parents bear so many hardships for our sake and bring us up. So, first of all, you must keep before you as your goal the contentment of such parents and the contentment of your own Ātma. Only then is God too content. Everyone should feel they are children of God. All must grow up together in harmony. That boy said it. What is called purity is a white thread. If that white thread stands alone, it has no strength. As a single thread it can be snapped between two fingers. But see how much strength comes when many such pure threads come together. Because that purity is held in unity, how great a divinity it turns into! That is why: 'If we stay together, we stand. If we split apart, we fall.' We must not make the slightest attempt to split apart. It is not only falling: it is dropping away. It is not only dropping away: we are burnt up; we must foster unity.