In plain words
On the other side there must also be the good character that holds it. Only then will this be a proper balance. Today man, the educated man of today, has lost his balance completely. If the bicycle we ride loses its balance, there is an accident. He falls down. Human life is a sacred life. If there is no balance in it, how great the danger! So the chief duty of an educated person is just this: to develop both of these, the senses on one side and good character on the other.
Students! It is not only a matter of keeping our senses properly under control. We must bring them into harmony. Patañjali said, 'Yogaḥ cittavṛtti nirodhakaḥ.' Restraining these movements of the citta is very hard. It is impossible. Bringing them into harmony is the right and easy path. Take up the good. The bad goes far away of itself. Only man's weaknesses are the cause of this. There was a foreigner, Carlyle. He was certainly very clever. Certainly a man of great learning. But because he had no control of the senses, he became very weak. He had an imagination. At night, when he went to bed, sleep would not come. When a month had passed in this way, he began to fall ill. He called the people of the house next door. 'Sir! You have made me ill; you yourself are the cause of it. There is a rooster in your house. That rooster crows all night long. Because of that crowing I cannot sleep. So keep the rooster properly shut away. Give me the gift of health,' he said. The master of the house next door said, 'We sleep in that same house. My rooster is not one to crow all night long. No rooster crows all night long. At night it crows once or twice.' Then Carlyle said, 'It crows once or twice. But from the time I lie down, the very thought of when it will crow keeps sleep from me,' he said. This is not an illness that came from the rooster's crowing. It is an illness that came from the weakness in himself. In the same way, in every person too, the dangers that come from delusions are greater than the danger from our senses. So this imagination must go from man completely. This imagination drags man down. As for the power of the senses, and the way the senses can to some extent be brought into harmony, we will enquire into that in the days ahead.