In plain words
We must remove this Ajñāna from ourselves. That is the fitting meaning of humanness. Mā-na-va. ‘Mā’ means Ajñāna, ‘na’ means without, ‘va’ means acting. He who acts without Ajñāna is man. We have been born as naras. Who is a nara? The very form of the Ātma! He who has no destruction is the nara. ‘Raḥ’: destruction. ‘Na’: what is not. ‘Naraḥ’ means one who is not destroyed: that is the nara. What is destroyed is the body, not the Ātma. So ‘naraḥ’ has another meaning: ‘the Ātma’. If man, who is the form of the Ātma, keeps the body as his goal, gives in to worldly vāsanās and passes his time thinking, ‘I am a devotee of God,’ ‘a devotee of God,’ how can he become a devotee? You are a devotee of Prakṛti. If you believe that Prakṛti to be the Paramātma, that too is a right meaning of Bhakti! But there too he divides: the Paramātma is one thing, Prakṛti another. Practising sādhanas of this kind for any number of years, any number of lives, he cannot recognise his own true nature. But man tries to make a success of his life by cleverness. What use is it to have this cleverness?
Today's learning only increases cleverness; it will not increase character even a little. If one has a crore of learnings and no character, what is their worth, what is their fruit?
This is merely a life without worth. Character is what is needed. It is only to nourish character that we must pursue learning. What is that character? It is the quality that makes one recognise the principle of the Ātma. That principle of the Ātma pervades everywhere. This is what is in the Bhāgavatam:
Wondrous, and for the three worlds sanctifying, sickles to the creeper of worldly existence, true friends, and to the grove of the sages the springtime: such are the stories of Lord Viṣṇu.