In plain words
Students, embodiments of Prema! Teachers of learning! Lovers of learning!
However much our parents grieve when we fall behind in learning or in science, the motherland weeps ten times more on seeing children who have fallen behind morally and spiritually. Students alone are fit and able to soothe the anguish of the motherland and of the mother who gave us our body, and to bring peace and security to the country. Students are like the foundations of the country. Only when the foundations are secure does the building stand firm. So, today, teachers, the people, the government and parents must make a fitting effort to work together to keep secure the foundations that are the students. Education is compounded of the five elements. It is endowed with the five prāṇas. It is made up of the five kośas.
Members of this gathering! In a sacred system of education there are many things we must come to know. In ancient times people held moral honour itself to be the sacred life. Today, in the forest of learning, students must roam like lion cubs. They must not prowl like jackals and wolves, full of wiles, given to cheating and fraud. Wherever you look in the forest of learning, only sheep are to be seen. Only wolves, only jackals are to be seen. The places where students lived once flourished in peace and security, in a sacred atmosphere. But today, is there peace and security in the places where students live? No. Students are the protectors of the people, the nourishers of the people, the leaders of the future, the uplifters of the Bhārata to come. To shape a fitting stone of life, in keeping with such a future, the right institutions of learning are urgently needed.
Embodiments of Prema! Today selfishness is growing in all the educated. We must broaden our hearts. We must foster the principle of Prema. We must prove that gratitude is man's true nature. But today people do harm to the very one who did them good. This happens most of all in the field of education. The students of today are breaking the heads of the very teachers who teach them.
Students! In the land of Bharata there are 108 universities. 108: the aṣṭottara of names. Today our university has gone past the aṣṭottara of names. I hope that this, the Sathya Sai university, will take shape as an ideal, not like all the other universities (may all universities do well; may every university rise to a high standard; may all the worlds be happy), and that students, parents, the people, the government and teachers will stand by it and give it fitting help.
The aim of our university is to teach, along with the subjects of the world, moral, dhārmic and spiritual ideas as well, and to shape our students in keeping with them. In ancient times the great ṛṣis founded such universities, bore many hardships, and handed down the culture of Bhārata as their gift. Having lost so vast, divine and splendid a culture, today we have become the ground for some passing, untrue cultures or other, and we are losing our lives.
Students! Teachers! Devotees gathered here! Officials! Truly, today is the first day of our institution of learning. Students are like the roots of a tree. For the tree of learning to grow branch upon branch, fill with many fruits and flowers and give peace and security to the world, the students themselves must stand as its roots. Sathya Sai's aim is just this: to water these roots. I am offering Myself in every way to the students alone. I hold the students to be My all. If you ask what Sathya Sai's property is, many people say, “Oh! So many buildings, so much land!” All this is empty talk. My only property is My children!
But some people cannot recognise this Satya. How will the unfortunate who cannot understand the Prema of a single mother understand the Prema of a thousand mothers? The chief quality in Sathya Sai is forbearance. So many people criticise Me. So many hurl abuse. So many papers write all sorts of things. They get so many pamphlets printed. All sorts of things go on in the world. My answer to all of it is just My smile. All these are only the hostile distortions that come to anything good. Only the trees that bear fruit are struck with stones. Some others, jealous that the Sathya Sai organisations and the Sathya Sai institutions of learning are growing far and wide, make up many things and stir up agitation even in the children.
Embodiments of Prema! Not these alone: even if the whole world joins as one, they can do nothing to Me. My aim is My own. What I do is good. My heart is always pure. I have no selfishness and nothing of My own. This is My Satya. Those who believe this Satya will not hold back from offering their very lives.