In plain words
We must never forget the mother who gave us birth, nor the country that sustains our life
Today the students make no effort at all to recognise the motherland and love for the country. We must never forget the mother who gave us the body, nor the country that sustains our life. In those days Rāma too went on teaching this very thing: ‘Jananī janmabhūmiśca svargādapi garīyasi.’ We may forget anything, but we must not forget our mother and the land of our birth. Man today, having become highly educated, falls prey to many greedy desires in order to leave his country and spend his life in foreign lands, and he forgets the welfare of the country. One who has forgotten his very motherland: what can he keep in mind? Whatever study he has studied and whatever learning he has learnt, he must use it in his motherland and bring his motherland proper progress. The villages of those days are the very towns of today. In our Bhārata, Madras is an important city. In the past its name was Chennappa Palle. Today Bangalore has grown into a great city. It was a village that lived by selling groundnuts. There they used to roast and sell ‘bengāl’, that is, groundnuts. The British changed it into Bangalore. What is the reason that, in this way, the villages of ancient times have become towns today? The strength to labour, and the interest in it, have withered away in people. For everything, comfort, comfort. What is this comfort? Comfort of the body? No. Even contentment of the mind is no contentment. Contentment of the Ātma alone is contentment. For the satisfaction of wealth, which belongs to the mind, and for comforts that belong to the body, the educated man of today is turning into an idler. Laziness is rust and dust. Realisation is best and rest. What does Realisation mean? One must recognise oneself. Who am I? I am a man.
Only when we put attachment to the body far away does tyāga begin in us
What is the work that one who is a man must do? The proper study of mankind is man.