In plain words
For your hunger to be satisfied, you need a harvest. You need cooking. For this harvest, farming must be done; studies have nothing to do with it. Only the farmer knows about farming; the office worker does not. Sachchidanandam said: Where is the jīva, and where is God? All this is merely a kind of mass of atoms. From the combined form of the atoms the whole conscious world is being born; but who gave these atoms their power of attraction? In one word, 'It is nature', they … dismiss it. Where did this nature come from? A student questioned his grandfather about something, it seems. The grandfather was a man of old-fashioned ways. As the boy sat doing some homework, the grandfather was doing his evening sandhyā, saying 'Keśavāya namaḥ, Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ, Mādhavāya namaḥ, Govindāya namaḥ, Madhusūdanāya namaḥ', and swallowing a spoonful of water at each name. He watched this work. He left his homework and kept looking at his grandfather. If Grandfather is thirsty, he could drink at one go from a tumbler, couldn't he? Why does he drink a spoonful at a time? 'What is this old-fashioned fuss?' he thought. He thought he would ask after it was all over, poor boy. Meanwhile, those were the old days. So he kept the ink bottle beside him and dipped the pen once and wrote once. This student doing his homework kept dipping and writing. The grandfather watched him too. The boy knows that he must dip the pen in the ink bottle and write. After the grandfather had finished his whole sandhyā, this … boy asked him. Grandfather! 'If you are thirsty, couldn't you drink all the water in that tumbler at one go? Why do you drink it a spoonful at a time?' he said. Then the grandfather asked, 'My boy, why do you dip your pen in that ink bottle each time and write? Wouldn't it do to pour what is in the bottle onto your paper?' he said. Then the student said, 'What, Grandfather? The letters won't show; the whole paper will turn to ink,' he said. This too is just the same, my boy! This too has letters of the names. When each name is said, it goes to that name. When you say 'Keśava', the word Keśava appears. Another time the word Mādhava appears. It is just the same with this. This is a divine principle, no less. As one writes with a pen from this ink bottle, so we write that water; each one has its own inner meaning. 'Without recognising its meaning, do not waste your life,' said the grandfather.
We simply imagine that today's cleverness is something great, but in it there is no general knowledge at all, that is, no natural qualities at all are to be seen. The ancients say that when the swan puts its beak into milk, the water and the milk separate. 'How does this happen?' asked … . The scientist of today said: this is nothing so great. Near its beak there is a kind of acid.