In plain words
But when we look at it in experience, we understand nothing of it at all. So only when we put into practice even one or two of the things that belong to our humanness do we gain the fruit. However many things we learn, if there is no practice, what is the use? I say now and then:
Why ten acres of land that yields no crop? Even a little good land is enough.
In the same way, it is enough if we learn one or two useful things.
Life is very precious. Within it, human life is more exalted still. It is a life of noble character. We must not waste such a human life. We must see to it that there is no more ‘death again, birth again’. We have come into this world once. We have come to know well all the things that are in this world. Enough now of this world! That kind of contentment must grow in man. Coming back again, looking at it again... a life of this kind is a life without meaning. Today a newspaper has come. We have read this newspaper through. Tomorrow it has become waste paper. What a waste it is to look at waste paper again! So this whole world is like a newspaper. Once we have read this newspaper through, next it is waste paper. That sense of it as waste paper is Vairāgya. However long we look at it, it is only this, is it not! However many years we live through it, it is only this, is it not. If we put on our tongue a single drop of the water in the ocean, whatever taste it has, the whole ocean has that same taste. So it is enough if we experience this world once. So we must understand the principle of this world.
All our studies and schooling are to be undertaken for the sake of a livelihood. The boys and girls of today are themselves the citizens of the future. It is the conduct of these citizens that is the good and the bad of the nation. A nation is not some shape or form. The conduct of human society is itself the root cause of the nation's good and bad. So all the good and bad of the nation rests on the destiny of the students. If the students of today are good, the nation will be good. If the nation is not right today, it means the students are not good. So we, as students, must grow into people who long for the welfare of the nation, the well-being of the nation. The well-being of society must be the students' goal. They must not be filled with mere selfishness and self-interest. We must destroy this thing called selfishness. We must forget self-interest. We must keep the welfare of society in view. That is what students above all must learn.
All of today's education only sharpens cleverness; it does not develop character.