In plain words
In the same way Air, the second element, also changed his rupee into small change, kept half a rupee with himself, and he too handed out two annas each to four others. The third, Fire, followed this same method. Water too, in turn, followed this same method. Earth too, just the same. It followed this very method. Following it in this way, what did it come to in the end? With every one of them the rupee stayed a rupee. But in what way did these rupees remain one rupee each? Before, it was one solid rupee. Now it has turned into a rupee made of small change. That is, the five elements as they were before are the solid rupee, and these rupees of small change are what pañcīkṛta means. The humanness joined with this pañcīkṛta passes current as rupees of small change. That is, it comes joined with feelings of every different kind. It has taken oneness for manyness. Before, it was a oneness that held the manyness. That is the old 'sixteen annas to the rupee'. Here it means sixteen qualities to a man.
In the spiritual principle they spoke of the ṣoḍaśa kalās. What are these sixteen kalās? Here: the five jñānendriyas, the five karmendriyas, these five elements that arose, and the Manas, one; these are the sixteen kalās. To think that these sixteen kalās are in God alone is great folly. Every person too has the sixteen kalās. That is why: Īśāvāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ. In the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad, Īśvara is everywhere. Īśvara sarvabhūtānāṃ. What is the reason this man came to turn oneness into manyness? Desires alone are the root cause of it. These desires have gradually gone beyond all limits. Desires related to the five elements are indeed essential. Because these have gradually gone beyond all limits, for every single thing the result must come at once, at once; they will not wait even for time. These three guṇas are themselves the form of the three times. When this time comes, no one can stop it either.
However you nourish and protect the body, it does not fail to go; hide in the great forest, and loss and gain do not fail to come.
Even recognising this truth, people get anxious over something or other: that if they go there the danger may pass them by; that if they stay here they may gain, so they think.