In plain words
Your whole life dawns and ends in work and toil, and this you have counted as life; you eat three meals a day and are content, and this you have counted as life; you sleep at ease till your weariness is gone, and this you have counted as life. No! It is to know the secret of life that God has given you birth. Having intelligence and skill, yet not coming to know it, why spend all your time in vain? Live as human beings, at least from now on, my dear ones; what more than this can I make known to you?
Jihve rasajñe madhura priye tvaṃ satyaṃ hitaṃ tvāṃ paramaṃ vadāmi āvartaya tvaṃ madhurākṣarāṇi govinda dāmodara mādhaveti.
Embodiments of Prema!
By speech alone kingdoms and riches can be gained. By speech alone friends and kinsfolk can be bound to us in many ways. By speech alone we are becoming bound. We are falling under others' power. We are losing our freedom. Even death comes about through speech. Speech is man's very life-breath. Speech is the backbone of life. Speech has a mighty power. O tongue! You are the one who has a sweet taste. You are very dear. You are the one who speaks the truth, kindly and in measure. O tongue! You must not enter into abusing others, criticising others, or making others a laughing-stock. Remember well the divine, sweet Name of God. Make the Name of God known to others; speak good words. Speak sweet words. Do not speak in excitement. Speak kindly, truthfully, in measure. Unfortunately, because such sweet, divine, noble and fresh words are lost today, society has become disordered, a home of unrest, and is throwing itself into turmoil. Through a civilisation that has grown out of all bounds, going past every limit and burning morality and its rules to ash, society today is turning into nothing but a small ball of fire. In today's society, tearing it apart in many forms and many ways, losing its unity and increasing disunity, society is falling prey to unrest. Through the divisions of caste and creed, through regional fanaticism, through desires of many kinds, through strife and bloodshed, it is turning society into nothing but a burning ground. The man of today forgets the eternal, true principle, longs for wealth and pleasures that are impermanent, unstable and untrue, and lives only a worldly life with no peace. Man has achieved great progress physically and scientifically. But morally, with petty criticism and with words full of nothing but envy, he hurts other people and wastes his life for his own selfish ends and self-interest. Whatever man loves, he loves for his own selfishness. Man does not love things for the sake of the things. He loves things for his own sake. Even his wife and children and his parents he loves for his own sake; he does not love them for the sake of his wife and children, for the sake of his parents. Everywhere self-interest alone is dancing wildly. Whatever he thinks, whatever he does, whatever he says, whatever he hears, behind all of it selfishness keeps moving. The man of today is a servant of selfishness, like a puppet in selfishness's hand. Without selfishness, without self-interest, he cannot take even one step forward. Today technological science has grown abundantly. Through what they call electronics, computers and plastics, they are gaining wonderful powers. Through atomic energy many machines are created, and they take on the most marvellous forms. Man is winning victories in outer space. On the other side, political turmoil. Fanaticism of caste, creed and region. The upheavals of students. We must inquire into the root cause of these two contrary kinds of growth. In the man of today the moral value is sinking lower moment by moment. Man's attitude to the moral, the righteous and the spiritual is changing terribly.