In plain words
No, no. You can think carefully about some words. You must recognise the difference between alpa and svalpa. Svalpa means much purity and little substance. Alpa means much substance and little purity. A small example of this. A teaspoon of milk: the quality is high, the quantity low. A soda: the quantity is high, the quality low. You read in the papers that when the minister came, they say, “We gave an alpāhāra feast.” Alpāhāra, that is to say, is something like dung. Is this what a feast is to be! We cannot recognise even this sacredness. If we give some tea and biscuits, we think it is an alpāhāra feast. We must learn what kind of words to use where. In our house there is a servant. We call out, “Ore Raṅganna! Rārā.” We say rārā. That is a word used for a servant. If some elder comes to the house, we say, “Please come, be welcome.” You see! For what kind of people we have used what words! So we must use high words for a high station; our words too we must put to use in the right way. This door: you can not always oblige but you can speak obligingly. We must speak our words with humility and deference. So at this door we must let in things that are sacred through and through. This upavāsa too people keep after a fashion: they eat less, as suits the time. They eat, saying it is just some upmā. This is not upavāsa. Merely taking sāttvic food by the one mouth is not upavāsa. We must take in sāttvic food through these five doors. That is sāttvic food. What we take in by the mouth goes through one opening alone. There remain four openings. Through them we hear bad, see bad and do bad deeds, and all this has grown into the majority. If, of the five openings we have, we take in sāttvika through one alone, and rājasika and tāmasika through the other four, that quantity grows too large. The young must receive what is sacred through these five senses. Only then will they become exemplary young people. We must recognise the sacredness in the youth of today.
In being human, tyāga is necessary. With this in view, the Upaniṣads have: “Not by works, not by offspring, not by wealth; by tyāga some have attained immortality.” This tyāga is the equal of immortality. Observe our body well in daily life. You can see how tyāga is at work. On one side, we eat. On the other, if we do not unload, the stomach goes bad. We must take in. Through that very tyāga well-being comes to us. We take in air. If we do not let out the air we have taken in, our lungs are ruined. In the same way, the body is healthy only while the blood circulates. If it stops anywhere without circulating, a clot forms. So what well-being tyāga brings about! In the same way, we earn money. We must give away, in tyāga, the money we earn. There is no use just putting deposits in the bank. Blood and money need circulation. Only then is there true joy and health for it. The young must understand this tyāga well. These things sound very small. From this very small thing great divinity arises. A seed looks very small. But it grows into a great tree. We must not neglect a thing, thinking it is only small.
Every person must develop the feeling for the nation today. Because this feeling for the nation is missing, our country is declining badly. Bhārata's national dharmas and cultures are abundant. Look into every home today: the elders, the ones who preach, all teach very, very great things from the lecture platform. The root cause of all today's young going astray is these very films. These crazy books. This very politics, they keep preaching. But why can this elder who preaches not keep control in his own house? In his own house, what books his children are reading, what pictures they are watching, what things they are talking about! When friends come, that same elder sits with them talking all sorts of nonsense, sets out bottles and drinks, plays cards and smokes cigarettes; how can their children listen? So these elders themselves spoil the children. So elders must take to the good path. The saying is good, the doing bad. That has become the reason the young of today take to the wrong way. In the past, before freedom came, the young of Bhārata made sacrifices, gave up their lives and mounted the gallows. They endured all manner of harsh punishment in prison. On the walls of the homes of those with such sacred feelings hung pictures of God and pictures of great souls. What was the reason? The leaders of those days did what they said. He who does what he says is a great soul. “In mind one, in word one, in deed one: such are the great.” The Lāl, Pāl and Bāl of those days offered up their lives in many ways, gave up all their property and possessions, and won self-rule. That is why that faith grew among the young. But today, look in the rooms of those same young people: film pictures flap in the breeze. And those pictures, what kind are they?