In plain words
So students must first of all cultivate mastery of the senses. Sarasvatī's grace comes only to the student who has mastery of the senses.
Seats of Learning Turning into Abodes of Lakṣmī
Today all the institutions of learning that should shine as temples of Sarasvatī have become temples of Lakṣmī. Everywhere you have to pay money for “admission”. In the end you have to pay money even to get good marks, even to pass. Precisely because a bond has been formed with Lakṣmī in this way, Sarasvatī, her daughter-in-law, has been driven into the forests. This is something you know very well. In Bhārata, as a rule, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law do not get on. If the mother-in-law is there, the daughter-in-law is not; if the daughter-in-law is there, the mother-in-law is not. If by some good fortune the two do live together, then every day a “Korean war” goes on. Today Lakṣmī Devī has come and sat herself down in the institutions of learning that are temples of Sarasvatī.
In our land of Bhārata, the day the sale of food, the sale of education and the sale of medicine began, that very day all the sacredness of our country was wiped out. We must not sell education. Today if you ask any student, “What are you doing?”, he answers, “I am buying an education.” Even for a child who will be born some 10 years hence, they are booking a seat in a convent right now. Such a sorry state has begun in our country. So teachers must keep this in mind and vow themselves to give students fitting teaching at all times and in every circumstance. Education came into being for the sake of life; today we think it came into being for the sake of salaries. “Education is for the supreme goal of life, not for making a living.” The educated must recognise this truth.
Become a Perfect Man
Today people pursue education not for the sake of learning but for the sake of the wealth that learning brings. “Money comes and goes, but morals and rules of conduct come and grow.” We must recognise this truth and try to develop morality and honesty. We must uphold human values. Since we are called human beings, we must earn a meaning worthy of the name. Only then can man become a ‘perfect man’. The awareness that turns man into a perfect man must arise in education. We must make man an ideal man. This is the very power of our culture, handed down from ancient times. But today, among students, saṃskāra has faded from sight and saṃsāra is flourishing.
In the end, what goes with us and stays beside us is saṃskāra alone, not saṃsāra. We must make our life an ideal life. Your good fortune rests on your conduct. So you must have good conduct. I hope that, since you have been moulded in this University, you will become ideal people, enter the world, bring about fitting peace and security, and demonstrate the ideal.