In plain words
O fool, when you do not know what you will gain hereafter, what use is it for you to know this? You are cooking food at home. How should it be put to good use? The food you have cooked you must serve to someone, must you not! Otherwise what use is it? If you keep it covered, it goes stale. What has gone stale is of no use. What have you achieved. How will you put your knowledge to good use for the world? That is what Śaṅkarācārya called foolishness. In the same way we are studying. We do experiments in the laboratory for hours and hours. We do research. But in life there is no happiness at all. When someone questions you, you think yourself a great scientist. How do you get water? You answer that water comes when you combine the two, hydrogen and oxygen. That is only acquaintance with books, not in practice, is it! In the laboratory you put the two together, oxygen and hydrogen, and made water. How can you see this water in daily life? You have sat down to eat. Are you mixing oxygen and hydrogen? You need water. That is the difference between study and saṃskāra. Water can be made with hydrogen and oxygen. To share that little water among the many is your saṃskṛti. Making it is no greatness. Putting it to good use is greatness. We must recognise this way of putting things to good use. Putting it to good use is saṃskṛti; making it is study. Along with study there must be saṃskāra.
The duty of students is to give peace to the country
Students! You see and hear many kinds of things in the world. However much you hear and see, if there is no change in you, it is of no use. It is you who must shape the world. You are the future citizens of Bhārata! You must walk on the right path and try to teach by it. Students, young men and young women must vow to cleanse this polluted world. With the firm resolve, “I can do it,” gird up your loins and step forward.