In plain words
Whenever one looked, the kingdom of Kerala, green and glowing and laughing merrily, …. Even now that beauty of nature is still to be seen by us. In Kerala. … by misfortune, unable to … the minds of these holy great sages and holy great kings, and taking to some wrong paths, it had to fall into some hardships. Bali was not one to live apart from his people. Nor were the people ones to live apart from their ruler. Between people and ruler there was mutual support, a bond that could not be broken. That is why, when all the people prayed, Bali, it is said, gave his word. ‘My people! You need not grieve. Once a year I will come and give you darśan and joy,’ he said. That is Oṇam. On this holy day, wearing clean clothes, new clothes, tajñā, preparing fine dishes and offering them to God: so that today the signs of Bali might be remembered, Oṇam came into being. The true meaning of Oṇam is that which is new. It may be new clothes. It may be new feelings. It may be new conduct. It may be new acts. It may be new karma. We must put away old ways of thinking, foul ways of thinking. We must develop holy and pure ways of thinking. That is the holy festival day the people of Kerala keep every year. For the people of Kerala this Oṇam is a great festival day. The joy they know in this they do not know in any other festival. But for all these people of Kerala to leave their own state and their homes, come so far, and spend this holy festival day here: if you truly think about it, the people of no other state come in this way every year. Only the people of Kerala come, enjoy their festival as a holy day, and go back. Truly this is their good fortune. This is a great example of devotion and surrender. That they leave their own homes and their own state and come here to enjoy this joy is truly a sign of Bhakti. In their own homes each of them makes ever so many kinds of pāyasam. With bananas, with coconut, they make whatever other food they want. But here, though there are no comforts, though there is no peḷḷa, the people of Kerala, who should be enjoying today in comfort, bear so many hardships here, and though they lack comforts of so many kinds, truly long for Swami: this is the true sign of Bhakti. Hoping and blessing that the devotion and surrender of the people of Kerala may grow day by day and that the whole of Kerala may stand out as holy and an example to others, I bring My discourse to a close. What protects a country is not merely many weapons. True Bhakti alone protects the country.