In plain words
This very Satya is the life of a word. Charity itself is the life of the hand. For man, practice itself is life. We use words just as they come, resort to some Asatya, and so lose our honour. What is our ornament? Satya alone is our ornament. In the Veda: satyaṃ vada, dharmaṃ cara. Holding to this Bhāratīya culture of ours, we must purify our saṃskāra. We must regard our good qualities alone as all our ornaments. Calm is the jewel of great souls. Speech is the jewel of man. Ānanda is the jewel of God. True happiness is found only in the Ānanda of God. Worldly joys, joys of nature, physical joys, momentary joys are not joys.
Through such prides as wealth, people and strength, we fall into many kinds of wrong paths. All our strengths today are like passing clouds. Strength of arm, strength of intellect, strength of wealth, strength of arrogance, all strengths are like passing clouds.
Though one has strength of intellect and strength of arm, without the strength of God he becomes wretched. What became of even a man as great as Karṇa in the end? Do not forget this good word.
Karṇa had strength of arm, strength of intellect, strength of weapons, all strengths. When you compare Karṇa and Arjuna, Karṇa is the greater. In strength, to some extent, Arjuna is the greater. But Arjuna did not have Karṇa's generosity in giving. He was not one to break his word once given. So, unable to break the word he had given to the wicked Duryodhana, he submitted to him. Even Karṇa, such a man of sacrifice and Dharma, turned out to be the fourth of the wicked four. What was the reason? Bad company itself. When we make friends with the wicked, all those wicked feelings enter us. When we make friends with the virtuous, all good feelings enter us. When charcoal joins fire, the charcoal takes on the form of fire. As the association, so the nature. Every man must deepen his faith in his own word. When the foot slips, it is possible to get away, but when the tongue slips, it is not possible to get away.