In plain words
Prema's form is Brahman; Brahman is full of Prema; to join Prema with Prema is the rule; so the one who holds Prema in its fullness may come to know a fortune that has no equal.
Embodiments of the sacred Ātma! Humanness is supremely divine and noble. To pursue learning with this humanness is holier still. Learning without understanding, knowledge without humility, scholarship without modesty, singing without sweetness, a life without character: none of these is worth even a hollow grain. Truly, to pursue learning means precisely this: to cultivate Viveka and humility. Humility, joined with modesty, carries sweetness in it. Sweetness must go together with character. In short, the goal of education, its final conclusion, is virtue. Prema itself is the essence of all beings. The principle of Prema, shown towards all beings, is itself the worship of God. At all times the finest rasa is the rasa of compassion. In every Dharma, man's duty is purity of citta. The goal of every sādhana is the winning of Śānti.
Embodiments of Prema! Śānti! Śānti! Śānti! For us to experience Śānti and to make it grow is very hard indeed. To stay calm whatever anyone says, to keep Śānti however much anyone makes you suffer, to take with calm whatever troubles they bring: at the start this is very bitter. But in time to come, this very Śānti gives nectar. ‘Whatever was said to him, he just stayed patient! This fellow is a coward, good for nothing, without any fire in him, a weakling’: let anyone think so, as much as they please. Merely because they think so, we lose nothing at all. Truly, if we let passion and agitation grow in us, thinking ‘They are getting in the way!’, it is our own life that comes into danger.
Truly, if happiness and joy are to be had on the spiritual path, Śānti is the one and only way. ‘Without Śānti there is no happiness … O You whose eyes are lotus petals.’ And more than that, this is not for any one person alone: ‘Be it the self-controlled … be it the Vedāntin … without Śānti there is no happiness.’ In today's scholarship we fill our heads with facts, but we do not fill our hearts with Prema. Because all such matters consist of information, in college they go on as examinations. An examination is held. They give the students a question paper. You write answers to this question paper. Whether you remember what you studied or not: that is what this examination is. But this is not the real examination. In the real one, the discipline we keep up for the whole of our life is itself the real test. For that we must hold purity of citta as sacred. For the sake of purity of citta we must do holy karmas. That is why they said, ‘Cittasya śuddhaye karmaḥ.’ To waste one's life wanting to enjoy all there is in the world, to gain all its riches, to slurp up all its pleasure … this can never be humanness.
When good feelings, good thoughts and good qualities are absent in a man, he is a man in outward shape only; in truth he is the equal of a demon. A stinking pool of water out in the open does the nation no harm. But the man whose heart is full of impure feelings and evil thoughts does the nation great harm. So we must pursue learning in order to rid ourselves of bad qualities.
‘Vidyā arthayate iti vidyārthi.’ ‘Vid’ means light. ‘Ya’ means: which? That which gives light, that alone is vidyā. Who should pursue it? Naraḥ. It has two syllables. ‘Raḥ’ means destruction; ‘na’ means not. The one who does not destroy is nara. The one who brings about no destruction is nara. The one who does not desire destruction is nara. How can one who takes the name nara and yet is himself the root cause of utter destruction be nara?
‘Śaryate iti śarīraḥ.’ The body is something that wears away. Some day or other it is bound to fall. But one's own heart stays pure always. It knows neither death nor birth. That is true humanness. You must follow that conscience. Follow the master, face the devil, fight to the end, finish the game. Never trust the wicked, who keep one thing inside and another outside, and who follow others.