In plain words
All the actions you do must be pure. They must satisfy your Ātma. The words you speak must be pure.
‘Jihve rasajñe madhurapriye tvaṃ satyaṃ hitaṃ tvāṃ paramaṃ vadāmi’. O tongue! Tongue that knows taste, pure tongue, selfless tongue! ‘How great you are!’ So the sage described it. How selfless the tongue is. Today man is defiling such a pure tongue. With untruth.
‘Anudvegakaraṃ vākyaṃ satyaṃ priyahitaṃ ca yat’. The words we speak must not stir up agitation. Just because it is the truth, you must not speak it in a harsh voice. Speech must be pleasing. Speech must be beneficial. You must not talk too much. It must not be merely harsh; it must be gentle. This alone is Satya, it has been said. Trikālābādhyaṃ satyam. Satya is that which is there in the three times. There is a thing called fact. But in the world people usually see Satya and fact as one. Fact is different. Satya is different. The two are not one. Whatever appears when you look, that is fact. Now you may be wearing a shawl. Tomorrow this shawl may not be there. But that you are wearing a shawl is a fact only for today, only for now. Tomorrow it is not a fact. If it is there tomorrow too, if it is there the next day too, if it is there in the three times, then it is Satya. So that which does not change in the three times, does not move, does not stir, does not die, does not fall: that is Satya. What keeps changing now and then, keeps moving, and grows stained to some degree, is not Satya. That is fact. What appears at the moment is fact. What appears always is Satya. In Vedānta this Satya has been called ‘Ṛta’. What is this Ṛta? It is not the object alone: knowledge is in it too. So through the oneness of these two it takes on the form called Ṛta. So in humanness, our Dharma is to speak the truth. That is true human Dharma. That is humanness. That is man's foremost value. But the heart cannot be seen. Only through the relation of these two can one recognise what the heart is like. Words and deeds, both are reflection of the innerbeing. These two are reflection, reaction, resound. That is Ṛta.
What are the values of humanness?