Passage 4

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In plain words

Does one become a man by having a human form? Good minds alone are a man's true form.

We must believe these good qualities to be man's value. Today you are forgetting the principle of Satya, Dharma, Śānti, Prema, Ahiṃsā. Today they are losing sight of these sacred human qualities. They are developing faith in worldly things that give passing pleasure, happiness, enjoyments and riches. So only when you recognise these impermanent things well and put your faith in the principle that is eternal and true will they become fit to make this humanness manifest or to make it blossom.

With so many kinds of learning, what is the fruit? Who has the power to avert what is written on his own forehead? If bad thoughts get into one's head, the mind is parched in the sun, the mind turns dry as pith.

So, because he lets evil thoughts into himself, though he studies ever so much learning he cannot attain the Ānanda and happiness he ought to enjoy. He may be a great scholar; he may have studied the essence of all the śāstras too. But when he has narrow feelings, he cannot give the world any of the benefit of this learning. He must develop a broad outlook and a pure heart. There is a great difference between education and refinement. Along with education, refinement too is needed.

In ancient times, to people who had studied every branch of learning they gave the title called pāṇḍitya. To give a fitting title to the people who had recognised the special greatness of this learning was the nature of the ṛṣis of that age. In Sanskrit, a great scholar, one adept in all learning, has the name sākṣara. That is, in those days it was a custom that along with such scholarship, control of the senses was needed. If a learned scholar lacks this very control of the senses, his scholarship does not shine at all, does not win him credit. This very control of the senses they called dama. ‘Those alone who have gained dama too, along with learning, are students.’