In plain words
On the sātkuḍi there is a bitter skin. Inside there is the pith and all the seeds. In the very middle, between these two, is the sweet juice. You see! Why must this bad rind be there on top? Why should God do it like this? Truly, if the bitter skin did not cover it on top, the sweetness inside would have no value. There would be no question of sweetness at all. It is because the bitter skin covers it on top that there is protection for the sweetness. Hardships, losses, sorrows, blame and reproach: all these come for our protection! These are not bad. They are not sufferings. We should not think of them that way. When hardship comes, this hardship too is for the sake of happiness! There is some happiness in it. With that kind of zeal, with joy, we must try to face them. We should not pine away crying, ‘Hardship has come, hardship has come.’ Behind the hardship there is another happiness. This hardship has come only for the sake of some happiness. God gave the thorn tree. He gave the fruit tree. He gave the thorn tree so that we might set it round the fruit trees like a fence. If we set the thorn tree up as a fence, it is like a protection all round. Today man cannot tell which is the thorn tree and which the fruit tree, and he sets up the fruit tree like a fence. That is why he suffers from the thorns. We must set up the thorn tree as a fence. We must use it to protect the fruit tree. There is the sugarcane. Inside it there is sweet juice. If we want to take out that juice, if we want to drink that juice, what must we do? We must chew the sugarcane well. Having chewed it, we must throw away the fibre and drink the juice. Only then does that sweet juice give us joy. If instead you say, ‘The sugarcane is hard; how am I to drink the juice?’ and just keep it in your mouth, it goes dry and stringy. You must chew it, take out the juice, and drink it. Only when it goes through all these torments do we get that sweet juice from the sugarcane.
In the same way, those who have entered family life, and those who are about to enter it, should not think, ‘Family life is a torment.’ There must be experience in it. You must take it as a book of research. Family life is experience. Even if we do not read a book, we must learn a fine lesson from what we experience in that family life. ‘How should I be with my mother-in-law, how should I be with my husband's sisters?