In plain words
The ancients have … , carrying out researches into many matters in many ways. Some saying God exists, others saying He does not, and yet … saying He both is and is not: in this way they have gone on arguing back and forth and wasting their time. Through … misconceptions, from the earliest times man has been unable to recognise the truth, and wastes his time … in misconceptions alone.
That God is not merely the embodiment of a single quality, that He is One who has taken as His form merely … a single power: in this way they have each … , voicing their own views. Some other ṛṣis … a great resolve to know this by whatever means. Some went a certain distance on the journey with this resolve and, unable to go on, stopped … . Others, resolved to achieve what they had set out to achieve, went on again … their sādhanas. Dedicating their whole lives, for the sake of divinity, in the search for God, they went on striving … . At the very last, waking from their tapas, they said, ‘Vedāhametaṃ …ruṣaṃ mahāntaṃ ādityavarṇaṃ tamasal parastāt.’ We have seen God, O … people! We have seen God. Where did we see Him? Beyond tamas we … . Tamas means the darkness of ignorance; beyond that we saw Him. We saw a God full of radiance. And what is that radiance like? It is in the light of a crore of suns. So God is the very embodiment of light. ‘God is the very embodiment of light’: this is what they went on proclaiming to the world.
But look again, taking the Veda as the guide: ‘Antarbahiśca vyāpya nārā…ṇaḥ sthitaḥ.’ They said that God is inside, outside, everywhere. And we go searching for that … God, asking where He is. Then what form has God taken within this mundane world? Today's man has reached a very high state in worldly, material terms. But morally, in Dharma and spiritually, he has not seen … growth. Day by day he is sliding down in moral life. … value. So once this moral value is lost, all that the worldly side brings is only … .