In plain words
Apply this history of the Mahābhārata to me and write it again so that my wish is fulfilled,’ he said. ‘In the Mahābhārata, the truthful one, the embodiment of Dharma, is Dharmaja. Choose me as Dharmaja,’ he said. Of them, Nannaya said, ‘Tānīṣā! We shall compare you to Dharmarāja. But you must have four brothers, must you not! Whom will you choose?’ He thought it over. ‘Among my ministers there are some very dear to me. Regard those four as my brothers,’ said Tānīṣā. ‘There are the Kauravas. Whom will you portray?’ they asked. ‘All my enemies are Kauravas! They are there in their hundreds. So settle on those who bear hatred towards me as the Kauravas,’ said the emperor. Everyone was quite content. Tenāli Rāmakṛṣṇa stood up: ‘Tānīṣā, sir! All the Pāṇḍavas are accounted for. We shall take the ministers. The one with strength of arm becomes Bhīma. The one with strength of mind becomes Arjuna. The clever ones besides become Nakula and Sahadeva. When you are Dharmaja, a wife, Draupadī, will be needed,’ he said. ‘The ministers too must have a wife. She is Pāñcālī. Whom will you settle on for this?’ he asked. Tānīṣā's head was in a whirl. ‘I don't want the Bhārata at all,’ he said. That is to say, we must enter into these stories after we have recognised the key to the Mahābhārata. In every matter, each person, each object, each subject has a life force of its own. Only when we recognise that life force can we understand with ease. Those who do not know this life force come to this very fate. All the intelligence of today is going off down crooked paths of this kind. Today people have as much intelligence as they need. What is the use? Let there be any amount of intelligence; only when there is at least a little character can we achieve as much as we like
We must try to develop character along with intelligence
Though they pass M.A.s and B.A.s and come out, though they be elders of great renown, though they have wealth and be given to good charity, though they be men of merit who have won fame on earth, though long life and health be theirs without end, though they be men of full strength, ever performing japa and tapas, though they be brāhmins who teach the Vedas, they are never the equals of the devotees. Without worshipping God, Bhakti does not come; without becoming devotees of God, Mukti does not come; what more than this can I make known? O students, counted among the good and the virtuous!