In plain words
Without Satya, Dharma, Prema and Śānti, all the learning one has mastered is worth nothing; without Satya, Dharma, Prema and Śānti, the merit of gifts and charity is nothing; without Satya, Dharma, Prema and Śānti, the fruit of holding high office is nothing; without Satya, Dharma, Prema and Śānti, the gain of many good deeds is nothing. For this mansion of Sanātana Dharma to stand, these qualities are its four walls, you see. What more than this can I make known to you, members of this gathering, honoured for your goodness and virtue!
Embodiments of the divine Ātma!
Problems that plunge people at home and abroad into confusion are to be seen in every field. Even so, we have to face them and strive to shape those fields so that they become strong and useful. In the field of education, the ancient culture is travelling towards its fall; we have to refine it and develop harmony, concord and equanimity in life. We must come to know what the inner meaning of education is. Education is that which purifies the antaḥkaraṇa. Education is the very way to develop the wealth of a moral and dharmic character. Education is what fosters the discernment of what is darkness and what is light, and makes it plain. Merely reading and writing books can never be education. That is no more than book learning. Without direct knowledge, indirect knowledge is worth nothing. We must join indirect knowledge to direct knowledge and put it to use for the welfare of the world. But today's education looks wholly mechanical. There is no life of any kind in it, and no skill. Not even a trace is to be seen of any chance to awaken the divinity within humanness. To make big profits by any means at all, without getting soil on one's hands or crumpling one's ironed clothes: that has become the supreme aim of today's education. Its outlook must change, so that it sees the essence of education as what is earned by toil and hard labour, by sweat, by going without sleep and food. Today's education makes every person a slave of the senses and turns him out selfish and envious, with no spirit of sacrifice. A job is not the supreme purpose of education. Yoga itself is the true aim. We must remove the scheme of training that has nothing to do with morality and honesty, develop in the educated humility and obedience, a mind for service, love of God and fear of sin, and through these make every home radiant.
Today the field of education is in confusion. Wherever you look, there are problems. These problems can be set right by reforming, to suit the land and the times, the ancient traditions and the culture of Bhārata, which shine in human life as eternal Satya and glow ever new.
Above all, the craving to imitate foreigners is the great misfortune of the people of Bhārata. Russia and America travel the path of science and strut about as the foremost in the world, yet greater progress than theirs took place in our country as far back as the Vedic age. Foreigners are carrying out a great deal of scientific research on the basis of the Atharva Veda of the people of Bhārata. The power of machines, the power of the atom, the power of tantra and the power of mantra are all set out in the Atharva Veda. To some extent, the hymns of the Atharva Veda helped the Westerners invent the aeroplane. As the saying goes, ‘the dal next door is the tasty one’: little by little the copying of foreigners has grown, and their culture, their very philosophy of life, has become dear to the people of Bhārata and keeps growing.
On 17 December 1903 the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane in America. But even before that, on 13 September 1896, a German invented it. Earlier still, on 14 August 1895, one of our own people of Bhārata, a man from Bombay named Vāman Bāpūjī, set out how to build an aeroplane. But the reason no name from Bhārata came forward in the research on flight is the envy, ill will and disunity among us; these alone are the reason.
That is why unity is urgently needed today in every field. In the same way, the qualities that foster humanness must also grow. What is needed is not degrees. We must give up the craze of acquiring education for the sake of degrees, not shrink from a life of service, come to know the riches of our own land, and learn the sciences of nature. However much strength the young have, they live like weaklings and waste their time. Through unity we must gain Ānanda, and through Ānanda, purity. For the young, patience is most important.
Forbearance is Satya, forbearance is Dharma, forbearance is yoga, forbearance is Ahiṃsā, forbearance is yajña, forbearance is right observance, forbearance is compassion; forbearance itself is the ground of all.
Forbearance and Prema are only two faces of one and the same quality.
Instead of fostering humility and obedience, today's education fosters Ahaṅkāra and envy. Education means light, brightness, radiance.