In plain words
Though he has recited the Vedas and Vedāṅgas over and over, though he has gained the skill to compose verse and prose, if he lacks purity of citta, he will come to ruin... What more than this shall I make known?
Embodiments of the sacred Ātma!
‘Dharmārthakāmamokṣānāṃ ārogyaṃ mūlamuttamaṃ.’ Health is essential for people to live in the world. Without health you cannot carry out well even the briefest tasks, not even for a moment. People learn many kinds of knowledge so that, with this physical form, they may carry out the actions that are their duty, serve mankind through them, and make their birth fruitful. Vemana taught that we must study the learning that knows no death. Śrī Kṛṣṇa stressed in the Bhagavad Gītā, ‘Of all kinds of learning, spiritual learning is the very best.’ Only the right effort to light the divine flame in man deserves the name ‘vidyā’. Through that divine flame, humanness becomes manifest, shines out and blossoms.
Yet today even the educated are blind people who stand before the sun and wail that they can see nothing. Could anyone be more foolish than a person who stands in a river flowing full and suffers, crying, ‘Thirst, thirst!’? Though the imperishable principle of the Ātma, which is eternal Satya, shines right within him, he has no faith in it; believing that he himself is the impermanent body, he becomes a slave to the senses in that body and strives to turn into a demon. Learning that does not develop the qualities of a pure heart, good character, śraddhā and sacrifice is simply useless.
We must achieve the oneness of these three: learning, divinity and spirituality. Only then will the divine flame shine in man. Through that flame, life must be radiant and bright in every act, in every word and in every thought. Not to know yourself, not to experience the Ānanda within you, but to search the outer world and end in disappointment: that is madness. It is nothing but blindness. search in yourself, not outside. Your own Satya is the Satya of the world. So the very instant you know your Satya, everything becomes clear. If you criticise others without knowing it, that becomes laughable.
If you try to see the difference between the education of those days and that of today, it becomes clear that the aim of education then was good character, a full heart and self-confidence. Today, in the field of education, the first things you see in the course of training are these: lack of śraddhā, a weakness without self-confidence, kāma, krodha and hatred. Today you see only people bound up with these five faults. Everyone is turning out like the blind. But they are not turning out as people who have Ānanda. Only on the day you set out to drive bad qualities far away will the supreme light called ‘the principle of the Ātma’ shine.
Krodha is a great enemy of man. It brings total ruin. People turn into fiends. Hatred, too, is just the same. They say no remnant of a disease should be left. For even when the whole disease has been cured, if some swelling remains on the legs, that is enough: if you break your diet, it grows still worse. So too with a remnant of fire. For even when everything has gone out, if some ember remains anywhere, it flares up when the wind comes and a disaster follows. You must not leave a remnant of debt. For if you borrow a thousand rupees, repay 999 and leave one rupee owing, interest on interest grows and the debt of a thousand rupees comes back to trouble you just as before. In the same way, no remnant of an enemy and no remnant of hatred should remain. For they settle at the very bottom of the Manas. Taking many forms, they grow, become big and twisted, and turn man into a demon. Envy too gets in deep inside and destroys human life itself.
If you drive kāma, krodha and the rest far away, health improves. Through them, man's worries increase. Only those without worry have the true fortune of health. Worry has no form at all. It is mere delusion. It has no existence at all. The very instant you stand up to it, it runs away. Even so, once it enters the Manas, that is enough: it destroys strength. It wipes out happiness. It ruins health. It shatters Śānti. Through thought of God and through self-confidence, you can slay worry. It is not possible in any other way.
A son-in-law came to his mother-in-law's house. The mother-in-law's household was very poor. Even so, the poor mother-in-law asked this one and that, borrowed here and there, and on the first day made sweets and dal and looked after him very well.