In plain words
That is, it longs to experience only the principle of descent. At the middle level stands humanness. Man must keep raising his vision upward. Only then will he understand the divinity that is above him. But unfortunately man, standing in the middle, is cultivating the downward gaze and makes no effort at all to nourish the upward vision.
So man must develop his vision into the lofty, noble, upward vision. Human life is not momentary. It is a crop of a hundred years. But the bent of the mind is not momentary either. This bent of the mind is like a companion that has followed man through many births. Though the body linked to such a long past is the principle of mind, a single moment is enough for man to cross over. A single moment is enough to recognise the principle of truth. “Yad dṛśyaṃ tan naśyaṃ”: all that is seen is only what perishes. Taking the unreal world to be real and believing in it, man forgets the principle of the Ātma that belongs to truth, and for that very reason he is falling under the power of Time.
Return good to the wrongdoer
Man is not a mere man. “Daivaṃ mānuṣa rūpeṇa”: God Himself took a human form, and this body was granted so that he might search for the divine principle of the Ātma. The body that was granted for the sake of the Ātma is today striving anxiously for “food” and keeps forgetting the Ātma. Instead of crossing over, man is moving very far from the goal. All the Vedas and Śāstras have taught the path that is worthy of honour. To honour those who have honoured you, and to honour those who have not honoured you: this is what the Śāstras approve. But to honour only those who have dishonoured, and to dishonour those who have honoured: this is the effect of Kali. Doing good to one who does you good is nothing remarkable; the real skill is to do good to the one who harms you, without finding fault. One may think: “To do good to one who has done harm amounts to encouraging the harm, does it not?” No, no. You must do good to the one who harms you. Otherwise, if we in turn do harm to the one who has harmed us, how can you be one who does good? When he is a wrongdoer, you too become a wrongdoer. So you are losing your own high standing. Even though he is a wrongdoer, you do him good; only then can you be one who does good. Then you become one who has nourished your own high character. So, to develop character, doing good to the one who harms you and honouring those who have not honoured you is the chief mark of a human being.