In plain words
A small example. Someone killed a person. The case went step by step up to the High Court. It went to the Supreme Court too. In this Supreme Court they decided that he must be given the death sentence. This is contrary on the spiritual path. The one who did the wrong is one person. The one who suffers the punishment is another. This is quite contrary to spirituality. Now if you think it over: who killed this man? Who stole his money? Who tormented them? When we inquire like this, we today notice only the bodily forms and names and give him the punishment due. It was not this body that killed a man. It was not this body that stole another's property. What urged these on was the mind. So the root cause of misconduct, Asatya and injustices is this mind alone. But the body moves as Manas tells it. If Manas did not itself resolve, 'You go there, take this stick and strike,' this body would not walk there. It would not take the stick; it would not strike him. The root cause of all such injustice, wrongdoing and misconduct is the mind alone. But today we do not give punishment to the mind. We give punishment to the body. That itself is the mistake in us. We must make that discrimination well. 'O Manas! I will not follow what you want. I will consult Buddhi and do whatever is just.' In this way we must teach Manas a lesson too. It is because such ways of acting are not seen at all among the students of today that this has become the root cause of every sorrow.
Because the system of education today has taken a wrong road, a kind of unrest is growing in every field. Now, we want to work in a bank. We want to do business. We want to work in a factory. What do all these depend on? The whole of man's daily life depends on education alone. Without this system of education, factories will not run properly. Banks will not be as they should. No other kind of employment will be as it should. In Telugu they put it this way: 'If the daughter-in-law is dark, the whole clan is dark.' Thus. If the daughter-in-law is dark, the whole family line turns dark, it is said. Our system of education itself is the daughter-in-Law. If this daughter in Law is in the right state, then for every field, the moral, the physical, the spiritual, the field of Dharma, the scientific and the political fields too will all be well. Today we must inquire well who is guilty and who is innocent. Some people commit some wrongs or other. They commit some sins. They are afraid of the world. They dread society. In that dread they take their own lives. This is very dangerous. It is very bad. For all the faults you have committed, Manas is the cause. How far is it just to punish the body without punishing that Manas? It is against Dharma too. So, one doing the wrong and another being punished: