In plain words
If the foundation is not secure, the walls will not stand. Dharma itself is the foundation of the mansion of life. In the world there are two kinds of Dharma. One is worldly Dharma; the second is spiritual Dharma. We experience Dharma along with our physical life. This is something always on the move. But spiritual Dharma never moves at all. If the foundation shifts in any way, the walls come crashing down. Dharma is what we must walk by all our life. Śānti is the very thing that fills life with light. A man without Śānti is like one who spends his life in a dark house. Whoever lives in the dark is liable to meet with any danger at all. Prema is supremely radiant. A mother loves her son, and the son too loves his mother. No one can describe the close bond between mother and child.
Once, when war came to Rangoon, a mother and her son, the two of them, escaped from there and reached Madras station. From then on their hardships began. The mother went from house to house, begging. Whatever she got, she gave to her son. If anything was left over, she ate; if not, she went hungry. The son did not know this. He would eat and sleep soundly. When some days had passed like this, the mother became very weak. “Mother! You have grown so thin! You are not eating properly. You give me the little rice you get and go hungry yourself. From now on, you stay at home. I will go and beg and bring food and give it to you,” he said. From that day the son set out to beg. Every day he begged and kept his mother fed. When some days had passed in this way, the boy became very weak. One day he stood in front of a house: ‘Mother, I am very hungry. Give me a little alms, Mother,’ he said. The master of the house was sitting in an easy chair on the veranda, reading the paper. Seeing this boy, he took pity on him, went into the house and brought out a little rice and sāmbār on a plate: “My boy! You look very weak. Sit right here and eat,” he said. Then the boy: ‘I will not eat here. I will take it home, give it first to my mother, and then eat,’ he said. The man grew angry. ‘If you are really hungry, you can sit right here and eat, can't you?’ he said. Just then the boy, faint with weakness, grew dizzy and fell down. Lying where he fell, he was trying to say something. The man went up to the boy, put his ear to his mouth and listened to the words he was saying. “Mother first, Mother first...” Saying this, the boy breathed his last. As much Prema as that child had for his mother, so much Prema did that mother too have for her son. The moment she heard the news of her son's death, she too breathed her last. So mother and child gave up their lives, each for the other. The mother's Prema for the child and the child's Prema for the mother must grow, each answering the other. From ancient times many such ideal mothers and children have been born in Bhārata. But today Prema for the mother is not growing in the son. Now it is all selfishness, selfishness, selfishness! Without Prema at all, it is as though there were no life at all. Prema itself is life. We must love our mother. Mutual Prema between mother and child must grow. Without it there is no life at all. Such a life is no life at all. Only when there is Prema do we gain Śānti and contentment. Ahiṃsā dwells only where there is Śānti. ‘Ahiṃsā is the highest Dharma,’ declared the Buddha. Satya, Dharma, Śānti, Prema and Ahiṃsā, these ‘five life-breaths’, lie within man's very five senses. Only one who has these five is a true human being. To protect these five, we perform so many kinds of rites, yajñas, yāgas and the like, and sacred acts, japa, tapas and the like. What do we perform these acts for? For purity of the citta, and that alone! Whatever man holds such sacred feelings, he is the blessed one, he is the virtuous one.