In plain words
When you foster this ideal and this aim, you will grow without limit. You have been listening for so many days. All of you know this. For some years now you have been listening to Swami's talks, in Bangalore and in other places too. You say they are good, but has even one person tried to put even one thing into practice? No one is putting it into practice. When you cannot put it into practice, what is the use of listening? What is eaten must be digested. What is digested must nourish the body. Strength must come to the body. But what is eaten is not being digested. It is breaking out as the disease of indigestion. Nowhere is it seen in practice. But in words alone they give as many lectures as you like: man's dharmas, man's morals and man's conduct are like this, like that. What is the use of giving them? They describe the qualities of humanness as Satya, Dharma, Śānti and Prema, but what is the use? They recite them in words, but in practice they do not demonstrate even one. If you practise even one and demonstrate it, that alone is enough.
Why ten acres of land where no crop grows? Even a little good land is enough.
Change Must Come from the Root
Land that yields nothing: however many acres there are, what is the use? A few acres of land that yields a crop are enough. In just the same way, if there is one thing put into practice, that is enough. But without practice, how many kinds of discourses they hear, how many elders they go to see, how many elders they touch, how many elders' blessings they receive. What is the use of all these? If you consider what the result of going there has been, it is all zero. We must not foster a zero life of this kind. As far as we are able, we must foster at least something of a hero life. We must make an effort to put at least one thing into practice. The years are rolling by. Time is moving on. The population is growing. In the very end it is all dissolving away. What have we achieved in this? We describe it in many ways: ‘Man must change, man must change.’