In plain words
And how must they bring up the children? Good conduct, and the carrying out of duty. Then those children turn out well. All of you must become ideal boys and ideal girls. There is no gain merely in going to the examinations and saying that first-class marks have come. They read the books. They go there and write down all they have read. First of all, you must take into the head all that is written down inside this book. From the mind it must come to the hand. From the hand it must reach action. So, first of all, you must hold what you have studied in the heart, in the right way. For what? For the future. past is past, will not come back. future is not sure. How do we know that we will last till tomorrow? present is not ordinary present, it is omni present. Only when we are good in the present shall we be good in the future. We must earn a name by being as it is good for us to be. When you think yourself a man, you must behave as a man. When we think ourselves women, we must behave just as a woman does. What you have learned you must pass on well to the people and to society. If society prospers, the country prospers. If the country prospers, the world prospers. So, first of all, we must change society. Before you change society, you must change yourself. first self, next help. Keep on being good yourself. The conviction must come to you: a good boy, a person of good qualities, of good conduct, one who shows a good ideal. Instead, if you go back, deciding not to become better, that is bad. You must not be bad. You must be good. There must be no bad look. You must not speak bad things. You must not hear bad things. You must not think of bad things. You must think only of good. “The thought must dwell only in the heart,” they sang. God, who is in the heart, must be reflected from within the heart. They gave God names: Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Govinda, Nārāyaṇa. For this very reason parents give names, to tell one from another. But if you look truly, there is no name whatever. What do they say? The Ātma. That is why, without giving Him any names, they call God the embodiment of the Ātma. There must be oneness of the jīvātma and the Paramātma. You must think in terms of the Ātma. You must not give any names.
Now, there is a girl. Her name is Lakṣmī. After some time she marries a man called Nārāyaṇa. Writing a letter to her friend, she signs it Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa. The husband Nārāyaṇa's name must come after. The friend's husband saw this letter. “When we were studying, we used to be like this, we used to be like that,” she wrote. “We all ate from one plate. We slept on one bed. We held to one word,” and so she went on writing. Doubts arise in the husband. Who is this Nārāyaṇa? They ate from one plate. The husband read it all. He beat his wife hard. “Who is this Nārāyaṇa? Get out,” he said. She was deeply hurt. “I know of no sin. I have done no wrong at all. I have no friends at all. Why torment me so at such a time?” she wept, sitting there. Meanwhile her friend came. There you did not write Śrīmatī Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa. You wrote Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa. With this, doubts arose. His name is Nārāyaṇa. Her own name is Lakṣmī. So I took the name Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa. Then he grieved deeply. He grieved that he had tormented his wife for no reason. In this way, after marriage some people change their names. Before you marry, you must put Kumārī before the name. After marriage you must put Śrīmatī. Then it is clear that the marriage has taken place. You must use even names with great care.
Students must win good marks in the examinations with good words and with songs. They must keep the five elements in the right way. You must see good. Children do not look at good; they are always looking at nothing but bad. When ten people are talking, they listen to find out what it is. In this way you must not listen to bad words. You must not cast a bad look. You must not join bad company. As the company is, so the person becomes. So, it must not go that way. God Himself is your company. Whether name, looks or words, they must be fine. Only then will the husband say 'good wife'. Otherwise it is a quarrel twenty-four hours a day. If they want married life to be happy, the two must live together in harmony. Both must see good. They must hear good. As the husband, speak the truth. She too will listen. “When college let out, where did you go? What did you do? Whom did you see? Whose house did you go to?” So many doubts keep coming. You must not let them come to her. Doubts must not come to you either. Once a doubt comes, fighting comes straight away. Husband and wife must give doubts no room whatever.