In plain words
The ideal place of the teacher
One must not think that a teacher belongs to some ordinary level. The teacher's place is a sacred place, the highest place, the lofty place that produces scientists, statesmen and administrators. A student may become a ruler. The one who makes that ruler is the teacher. In how sacred a place such teachers must stand! Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a teacher of mathematics in Poona. He was a great man who rendered great services in politics. An ideal in service. When his friends asked which minister he would become after Svarājya came, he said, ‘I do not want any minister's post.’ ‘For me, who makes students into the finest ministers, what need is there of a minister's post? Remaining a teacher and making students into people of responsibility is what I long for,’ he said.
Today knowledge too is going beyond its bounds. ‘Na śreyo niyamaṃ vinā,’ they have said. For everything there must be a rule. Today science is crossing beyond the sky. This is very dangerous. Everyone sees it and rejoices. But this is not a matter to rejoice at; it is a matter to grieve over. The scientist has taken everything, earth, water, fire, wind and sky, into his own hand, and is playing with it. These powers are nothing greater than the powers Hiraṇyakaśipu won in his day. Whatever kind of power Prakṛti must have, in whatever weight and in whatever state, that must without fail be there. If Balance, that is, equilibrium, is lost even a little, it is danger for the world! At the top level is knowledge, at the second level skill, at the bottom balance. We are not turning knowledge into skill. Because we use knowledge for mass slaughter, balance slips. That is why many kinds of accidents are happening. So we must teach the students the evenness that makes these three one. Today we are not teaching evenness. Each for the sake of his own name and fame, they are carrying on many kinds of research. Their cleverness is going beyond its bounds. Nobody has his hands full of work. Because there is no work, base feelings are growing.