In plain words
He was a man of very noble mind. Seeing me standing on the bench, he asked that teacher, ‘Why have you made this boy stand on the bench?’ ‘He has not written the notes,’ he replied. ‘That may well be true, but he can answer any question you ask. So get him down from the bench at once. What you have done is wrong,’ said Mahbub Khan. But that teacher would not agree. Just then the bell rang. He made to rise from his chair to go to another class. But he could not get up. He looked to see if some nail had caught his dhoti. There was nothing. He was stuck fast to the chair, and so he could not rise. Then Mahbub Khan: ‘We must not punish others without cause. That boy looks to you like an ordinary lad, but there is a great power in him. At least now tell him to sit down,’ he said. Then the teacher looked at me and said, ‘Sit down.’ The very next moment he was able to rise from his chair.
When Easwaramma heard of this from the children: ‘Sathyam! Is it right for you to punish a teacher like that?’ she asked. ‘I did not punish him at all. He punished himself,’ I told her.
Easwaramma to the children: ‘My dears! You all go to school and are getting an education. You must put the learning you study to good use. You must become truly educated people and earn the title ‘sākṣara’. If you do not put your learning to good use, ‘sākṣara’ becomes ‘rākṣasa’,’ she said. To me she said one thing: ‘My son! Whatever the situation, whoever the person, do not hate. Love everyone. Only then will everyone love you.’
Prema is not ‘one way traffic’. Only when we love others will others love us. I love everyone. That is why everyone loves me. We must give Prema and receive Prema. Easwaramma would often teach such sacred things.