In plain words
Enthusiasm is seen nowhere. A man acts as if he were enthusiastic, but that is not enthusiasm. To laugh and say, ‘Hello, how are you!’ is only a cinema laugh. Inside there is pain.
The meaning of festivals is to nourish life with sacred feelings
Today a man without sorrows is seen nowhere. All of life is full of sorrow. Not one or two sorrows. Everything takes the shape of sorrow. Everything is full of worry.
Being born is a worry, living on the earth a worry, family life a worry, death a worry, all of childhood a worry, old age a worry, to live is a worry, to come to ruin a worry, every action a worry, hardship a worry, joy itself a worry, a strange worry; Bhakti for Sai, which takes away every worry: take it up at least now, good people, to your heart's content; what more than this can I make known to you, members of this gathering, honoured for your saintly virtues!
If you want to be happy sitting on a tamarind tree that bears so many worries, where is the happiness? This whole tree is sour. If you want happiness while living in such a thing, where will it come from? It cannot be. What is it that we must change today? We must set our seeing, our hearing and our words on the right path. That is the right meaning of the true Saṅkramaṇa. If there is no change in us at all, what use is it however many Sankrāntis come? At this Sankrānti people eat ariselu. They are sweet only while you eat them; afterwards it turns to bitterness. Joy does not come with ariselu. Festivals are not made of pāyasam and sweet rice.