In plain words
This Ahaṅkāra and pride are the cause of man's endless bad qualities. Give up these qualities,” he said, and went. Everyone gathered by the platform where he was to speak. On the platform they were waiting to welcome Vidyasagar. He came up onto the platform. Everyone was honouring him with garlands. This official sat in the audience. He saw. “So this is Vidyasagar. Is this the one who carried my box? Chi! Chi! What a wrong I have done. Unable to see a man's worth, through Ahaṅkāra and pride I have dishonoured a great man. Humility is the proof of the good. For the truly learned, humility is the ornament. Today I have learnt this quality,” he thought within himself. Great scholar though he was, if a wrong thought began in Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar he would take it firmly to task and teach it a fitting lesson. “Cha! For thoughts like these to come, am I a man or a beast? I am not a beast, I am not a demon, I am a man. Such a quality must not come up in a man”: so saying, he would give it a harsh punishment of that kind and set himself on the right path.
But the educated and the students of today, sadly, do wrong things. They form faulty intentions. But they justify themselves. What do they say? “I am only human; these intentions keep coming. Surely that is natural,” they say. This is the great weakness. To one who is only human, bad intentions must not come at all. He must not enter on a wicked path. He must not take to bad conduct at all. That is the true man. Because they go on justifying it today, they are turning into demons. You must not justify a fault. You must not think, “I am human after all; this is natural.” For man this is not natural at all. For man, good qualities and good conduct are the natural marks. You must make a fitting effort to nourish such good feelings. Today it is the shape of a man and the conduct of a beast. The shape of a man and the behaviour of a demon. “Do not be fooled by the outward form; character alone is your true form,” it has been said. Character alone is man's true form. You must not be fooled by looking at this form that has hands, feet, a nose and a head. How many great souls have arisen in the world who proclaimed such good feelings well to the nation and gave ideals of many kinds!
But today such great mothers are becoming rare. The parents encourage the faults their son commits; they do not condemn them. So the parents are the root cause of the educated of today sinking into such ignorance. Only if the parents have saṃskāra will they pass it on to the children. If a son has turned bad, it is really the parents who are bad. If they were not bad, bad children could not be born. Does a mango tree bear neem fruit! The fault in the parents is what has entered the children.
After the war at Rangoon, some people of Bhārata came from Rangoon into Bhārata. A mother and her son reached Madras. Where the husband and the other brothers had gone, none knew; they had lost touch with one another. They had no support of any kind. For some time she begged from house to house, brought the food, fed her son, and then, if anything was left over, ate it herself. If not, she went hungry. The boy saw this situation clearly. He was only a little boy. “Mother! You are feeding me without eating yourself; of the alms we bring, you eat half and I eat half,” he pleaded with her earnestly. But the heart of a pure mother is so tender. With the good intent that her son must eat first and live well, she went on doing this. Gradually the mother no longer had the strength to bring alms. Holding his mother's feet: “Mother! Stay right here under this tree. I will go begging,” he said. As her son went off to beg, the mother could not bear it and shed tears. That a mother, while she lives, should make her son a beggar! There was no help for it. “I cannot walk. It has to be done,” she said, and agreed. The son going from house to house, bringing back a little alms. Feeding his mother, and going hungry himself. “Son! Have you eaten?” she would ask, and he would make some excuse or other, “I have eaten, Mother,” and see that his mother alone ate. In this way, feeding his mother, he went on going hungry himself. After some days no alms were to be had anywhere. The mother grew weak for lack of food. He went up to a house: “Hungry, hungry,” he said. The master of the house was reading the paper in a chair on the verandah. “Hey! Are you hungry?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Then sit here; I will lay a leaf and serve you rice; eat,” he said; and the boy: “I will not eat. Put the rice in my bag. I will take it home,” he said. “If you are hungry you should eat; why will you take it home?” he asked. The boy did not tell the secret within. “I won't eat here; I'll take it home,” he kept saying to himself, and the boy collapsed to the ground. He was saying something with his lips, some words. This officer went close and put his ear to him and listened. What was the boy saying? “First for Mother, then for me. First for Mother, then for me,” and saying it, he breathed his last. Do you see! That bond of love between mother and child. For his mother's sake, a son would give his life. For her son's sake, a mother would give her life.