In plain words
There is no such thing as childhood, youth, adolescence or old age. For remembering God there is no such thing as childhood. The body may be young, but the births may have been very many. So we must not try to take the body itself as the measure.
When phlegm swells and chokes the throat in agony, when relatives say in haste, ‘Put him outside, there is no more use,’ when the messengers of death roughly drag the noose of life, when wife and children wail and sob, can one then speak the Name of Hari aloud!
Just such is the fate of those who sit waiting for that moment. When the messengers of death drag the noose, crying ‘Come, come!’, when the relatives say hurriedly, ‘Put him outside now, there is no use,’ when wife and children wail and sob, will the chanting of the Name come at that time? It will never come. The remembrance made in one's lifetime is itself the support at the last hour. If you do not contemplate God in an exemplary way in this lifetime, when will you show the ideal? In this very lifetime we must offer the ideal of contemplating God. This itself offers the ideal at the last hour. It gives Ānanda. It brings fulfilment.
In a temple there was a priest who had been doing worship for many years. Since it had become a habit over many years, he would hold the ārati plate in one hand and, ringing the bell with the other, wave the ārati and do God's pūjā. What was the reason? ‘Śreyo hi jñānam abhyāsāt’: only because he had practised so long did it all go on of itself, the ārati plate in one hand and the ringing of the bell with the other. That priest died. They appointed a new priest. When that priest waves the ārati, the bell stops. When he rings the bell, the ārati stops. He does not ring the bell in time with the ārati. What was the reason? His having had no earlier practice is itself the root cause of this. If we have not practised the contemplation of God even from childhood, in old age we cannot utter it with our tongue.