True education, I believe, is that which strengthens the individual and keeps them away from sorrow. If someone criticises, one can listen to the criticism boldly, and when one has to offer criticism or a comment, one can give it with patience and confidence, without hesitation. There should be no timidity, there should be joy along with a sense of mental fulfillment—this is knowledge.
Knowledge removes the darkness of ignorance in life and makes you joyful. Without knowledge, we remain depressed in life. Whosoever is depressed, know that they lack knowledge. What is the reason for sorrow? Whatever we have received, will eventually go away, we will leave it all behind. Nothing is going to stay here; everything will change. Nothing will remain static here, neither our body nor our home, profession, prestige—we will go beyond all these one day. Then, what is the fear about?
It is extremely necessary to eradicate ignorance. In many villages, people do not send their children to school. They do not study. Educated people are scarce in the villages, in the backward regions. We need to impart education.
Similarly, in every aspect, we need to obtain knowledge. How and what we should eat—we have no knowledge of it. We eat only carbohydrates—potato, rice, rotis. Potato is starch and carbohydrate, so is rice and roti. We get only one nutrient in our diet. By adding a little bit of lentils, the meal is not balanced. That is why acidity is generated, people fall sick, they get diabetes. One should have knowledge of food.
Life is a combination of simplicity and complexity. On one side, life is very simple, on the other side, it’s very complex. While complexity makes life interesting and aids growth, simplicity gives it some breathing space—both are there at the same time. How? You ate some food and you feel that the food has digested. But if you look into the process of digestion, it is very complex. First, the carbohydrates get mixed with the saliva, then it goes into the stomach and mixes with the gastric juices, where it takes some time to digest. Then, it goes through the duodenum and later gets absorbed in the intestines, after which some goes out, some goes up. The essence of it goes into the blood.
Similarly, even in life, darkness goes and light comes; wisdom dawns and ignorance fades away—this is a simultaneous process. You are washing a soiled cloth, as you are applying soap on it, the dirt is going away and brightness is coming up, both simultaneously. In life, if knowledge has to come up and ignorance has to go away, you need a Guru; you need the Guru principle. It’s not just enough to have wisdom; wisdom also has to be put into action. It has to be useful.
If a great scientist says, “I have all the knowledge”, what is the use of having all that knowledge? Did you use it in practical life? Someone knows all about organic farming, but if they have not done any farming, what is the use? You can have the knowledge and you can die with your knowledge. Have you made use of the knowledge? Did it get utilised in society, in the world? It’s one thing to get knowledge, another thing to be able to transmit it to others and utilize it. Movement of knowledge is an important aspect as well. Okay, you use your knowledge, but what is the use if it yields no result. What is the end product? How much benefit has it produced? You had the knowledge of organic farming and you put in so much work, but later, nothing came out of it.
I want to share one incident with you. Long time ago in the late 1980s in Bangalore Ashram, a gentlemen came from England. He said, “I want to do horticulture, plant lots of trees”, and I said; “Okay!” With enthusiasm, he bought pots and we got him the seeds. Whatever he wanted we gave him. He brought the seeds and he sowed the seeds but his education was not for a tropical climate, his education was for the arctic climate.
He sowed all the seeds in the pots, gave all the nutrition it needed, everything. Seeds were sown, water was being given every day, but finally, we found not a single seed had sprouted. Not one of those 100 odd pots became a sapling. The achievement was zero. At the same time, we gave a villager living around that place, a quarter of the resources given to the educated person, he sowed some of the seeds but grew tomatoes and many other things as well. So, often we think that people have knowledge and they use their knowledge, but achievement happens with something else. Usually, we brand it as luck and leave it at that.
Two gentlemen doing the same business open shops next to each other, one shop is flourishing and the other shop fails. In such a situation, what do we usually say? It is luck. Hasn’t this been the experience? How many of you agree with me? You can see that there are people opening similar types of restaurants, one is flourishing and the other is going down. You don’t understand why this happens. This is where your eyes open to something beyond logic because we are programmed to think only in a logical way.