In plain words
It is because Manas, speech and body drag this Prema down to that level that we fall into unrest of many kinds. Prema always stands as the witness. You may take your speech, your body, your Manas to Prema, but you must not bring Prema to your body. In the same way this speaker is God, too. Take it to God. But you must not bring God down to this lower level, calling God a chair, God a cloth, God a speaker. So we must take even what is small to a high level, and not bring it down to a lower level. So these four words of Sathya Sai, Satya, Dharma, Śānti and Prema, are the great sayings of the four Vedas.
These three, Satya, Dharma and Śānti, all belong to Manas, speech and body. Prema alone is beyond all three. When we compare these, Satya, Dharma and Śānti are Bhakti, karma and Jñāna. These are just like three legs. The plate that rests on them is this Prema. In this way we must try to join the spiritual outlook, moral dignity and the truth of the world into one, and teach through that. Above all, we think of teachers as people of a lower standing. But that is a great mistake. Of all the callings in the world, the teacher's calling is the highest. It carries great responsibility. For it is these teachers who shape those who will lift up the Bhārata of the future. It is these teachers who shape the citizens to come. It is these teachers who shape heroes who will rule the world. Today, because the teachers teach sacred feelings to boys and girls of tender heart, those children are to become good rulers in the future.
In India you will have heard the name Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He went forward in the front rank of the struggle for self-rule. ‘Tilak! When we have won our freedom, will you take the office of Prime Minister?’, some friends asked him. Then he said, ‘I will be no officer of government of any kind. For I will be one who shapes the rulers. I will be a teacher in the high school I founded in Poona. For only when these boys and girls of tender heart are given a good training, only when the skill of governing is put into them, will our Bhārata enjoy real joy in the future’, he said. So it is in Kṛṣṇa's story, too. Though Kṛṣṇa was a great hero, though He was all-knowing, all-pervading and all-powerful, He conquered all the kingdoms and went on crowning others, but He Himself did not become the lord of even one kingdom. That is, He was the kingmaker who makes the king: is the king great? Is the kingmaker great? In the same way, since all the teachers today are the ones who shape the rulers, teachers are greater than rulers. So the future of the country, its rise, rests on your effort. If it is truly your wish that the country's prosperity should be high, you must take up this work as a vow and shape the children into rulers of the right kind.
Among those gathered here, how many will be true teachers? We give ourselves the name of teachers, but we do not wholly immerse ourselves in the effort and the work fit for a teacher. When you do your duty with all your heart, a result that fills the heart will come to you too. A small example. In a college they appoint a lecturer full time. They give him a full salary. But they do not give a part-time lecturer a full salary. In the same way, when we work with a full heart, the salary called full grace comes to us. But if we work with part-time devotion, only a part-time salary comes. We must develop the śraddhā and Bhakti it needs and do our duty in full. This is not for Me, nor for you; it is for the world, for the country's prosperity, for the country's welfare. So the teachers must develop the broad feeling that all the worlds and all beings should be well. For if the teachers toil, the country will be very much the better. And besides, I am telling you one thing more. Many people, with nothing to do, make wasting time their one work. What is the reason that bad feelings and needless feelings come to man today? Of a hundred devotees who come, ninety are in unrest. Whomever you ask, it is unrest, unrest: in body, in mind or in Ātma. We must first find the root cause of this unrest. The root cause of this unrest is the needless feelings we keep growing. What is the reason these needless feelings gather? Having no work.
How so? Here is a small example. In 1914 the World War came. Then, out of love for his country, anguish grew in a young man. ‘Since foreign kings have all come and invaded my country, to protect my country is my first duty’: with this, in fierce detachment, without even telling his parents, he went into that war.