In plain words
They went to no college, to no school. Yet they grew in themselves the quality that spread their fame, their name and renown, to last forever, not only in our Bhārata but to the rest of the world as well.
Everything Comes Back as a Reflection
Whatever respect, whatever name and renown we hope to receive from others, we must behave in a way that fits it. To want others to be this way, to be that way, while that kind of nature is missing in ourselves: this is nothing but a kind of selfishness. Anyone at all, children or elders or someone else, whoever it may be, has the respect they deserve only when they act in keeping with what they say. So we must live this, which is right, and through it see our humanness set on a path that has some worth. Discipline itself is life. Without discipline, it is living death. Here is a small example of this. A small example from the Rāmāyaṇa. Rāvaṇa laid many schemes, meaning to win Sītā for himself; yet why did that Sītā not come to Rāvaṇa? Had he been a man with the very qualities fit for that Sītā, Sītā would surely have come to him. Śūrpaṇakhā made many attempts to win Rāma. But did Rāma come to that Śūrpaṇakhā? Did she get him? But who comes to whom? If he is a Rāma like Rāma, a Sītā like Sītā comes to him. If she is a Sītā like Sītā, a Rāma like Rāma comes to her. But a Rāma who is like Rāvaṇa and a Sītā who is like Śūrpaṇakhā: should they want a bond with each other, it will never come about. In this, we are just the same. Men may beg, ‘The one we want, at least, must be good, must always be noble, must always be one who never crosses my command; I must get a wife like Sītā.’ They may hope for it. But the man who wants a wife like Sītā must make himself like Rāma; if he makes himself like Rāvaṇa and then wants a wife like Sītā, she will never come to him. With women too it is just the same. When they wish, ‘I want a husband like Rāma; he must be a man of good qualities, he must be vowed to one wife,’ only when they too make themselves like Sītā will a husband like Rāma come to them; but to want a husband like Rāma and make oneself like Śūrpaṇakhā: will such a husband ever come!