In plain words
No mother, no father, no kinsman, no brother; no wealth, no house: so beware, beware. Birth is misery, old age is misery, a wife is misery, again and again; at the last hour, great misery: so beware, beware.
As he was saying all this, the boy said, ‘Swāmi! All that suits people like you, but it does not hold for people like us.’ There may be many such people in the world. My mother and father are not like that. My wife is not like that. My wife will not eat without me. If I am late coming home, my parents wait for me at the door. That is how full of Prema they are towards me. ‘So there is no sense in saying mātā nāsti, pitā nāsti,’ said the student. ‘Look here, I will prove it to you by direct evidence,’ said the guru. He gave him a pill. He told him to take that pill as soon as he got home. ‘You will look as if you had dropped dead. But your conscience will be working. You will know who is saying what. But to the outside world you will look lifeless. Then recognise this truth,’ he told him. Let us see: this is a test. For the young, everything is a test. For children, a test means a taste. He went and took it. He fell down. His mother came. She called his father. She cried out. Alas! She weeps that her son has died. Hearing this, his wife came running. ‘Alas! What will become of me?’ she weeps. ‘I am my mother's only daughter. If my husband ends like this, what will become of me?’ she weeps. In her very lament it is ‘What will become of me?’ that she weeps? The neighbours gathered. A good boy he was! Everyone grieved, poor things, that he had been one who lived his life on the spiritual path. Just then a swāmi arrived. Thinking he had come at just the right time, everyone made way for him. ‘Amma! Why are you weeping?’ he asked the mother. ‘My son is dead, Swāmi!’ she said. He asked the wife, ‘Why are you grieving so?’ ‘He is my husband; if he goes, what will become of me?’ she asked. Then he told the father, ‘Go inside and bring some water in a glass.’