In plain words
reach [Him]. Hence the prayers devotees offer must be selfless, pure and free of desire; otherwise they do not reach God directly. If addressed to some other presiding deity — that is, belonging to a different department — they cannot, by virtue of that very belonging, belong to the Divine.
Śāstra means that which ordains. That food must be eaten calls for no teaching — one cooks a meal for oneself; that a field must be tilled properly to yield a crop needs no teacher either — the śāstras need not instruct in such things. As soon as a calf is born, even before it has put its mouth to its mother's udder, milk has already been provided there to relieve its hunger. How subtly, and how great a principle, this single fact reveals is worth noting: it becomes evident that a jīva's sustenance is present with it from the very outset. Sustenance is born first, and only afterwards is the jīva born. A jīva's portions of food and enjoyment are governed entirely by its own past karma; the karma one performs for their sake is merely the occasion through which they arrive. Man, making use of his own intellect, goes on performing the worldly actions he undertakes. But of whatever is unknown to men, imperceptible to the intellect, impossible for man alone, and yet conducive to human progress — of all such things the Vedas declare the practice and the method, and the śāstras determine them as well. So, however important worldly actions may be for man's welfare, Vedic actions are just as important; and the entire fruit of Vedic action, in this world and the next, is nothing but riches — that is what the wise must understand.
One Dharma, the one called service to the world, holds the foremost place in the domain of karma. In this age, if one who undertakes such public welfare comes to recognize that, being himself one jīva among many in the world, he too has a share in whatever benefit accrues to the world, that recognition becomes the primary benefit of the public welfare itself. Today it is said: service of man is itself service of Mādhava, service of the world is service of its Lord, service of the people is service of Janārdana, and service of any jīva is service of God —