In plain words
In this vast world, beasts, birds and animals, worms and insects, ants and mosquitoes go on carrying out their own duties. Even the cruel beasts go on carrying out their own duty. But man forgets to carry out his own duty. Time is rushing past at great speed, like a raging storm wind. The span of life allotted to the body is melting away moment by moment, like a block of ice. But man leaves the body before he has even recognised his duty. What is the use of having been given human birth? What is the greatness of this human birth? Narajanma durlabham: what is it that is hard to attain? Man does not enquire into this in the least. He does not recognise it. He does not act on it. Human birth is very sacred. We must make the fullest use of so sacred a birth. But this good use is not being made. We are wasting our karma, our time and our body. What is the reason? We are devoting our lives to these sense pleasures alone, physical, worldly and material. Devoting their lives to these material ways alone, thinking this is their aim, believing this is the goal, they cannot recognise the truth. All these are the marks of pravṛtti. All these are simply the qualities of pravṛtti. But man's natural trait is the principle of nivṛtti. Forgetting today the spiritual principle, which is eternal and true, he is devoting himself to a life that is worldly, physical, material, impermanent and fleeting.
Only when divine feelings fill the temple of the mind do material feelings go
Study ever so much: what use is it?
Learn ever so many branches of learning, what is the fruit? It is beyond one's power to escape the writing on one's brow; if evil thoughts get into one's head, the intellect turns to stone and withers away.