S. M. Fossil arranged for Baba to visit a local high school. For those students, local artists, social workers and those associated with Madras’ public institutions, Baba gave the following message to those present:
Literacy is not education, and education is not culture – and all these cumulatively do not represent Gnan or Gnosis, which stands in a class by itself, independent of any concomitant factors.
Illiteracy and ignorance invite exploitation. Literacy also becomes a willing tool in the hands of those who exploit. Education devoid of culture is inherently destructive, although it apparently simulates advancement and progress.
Since all types and classes of people have claimed it for their political and material greatness, culture with them is a vague and indefinable something. But true culture is the result of spiritual values assimilated in life.
The student world of India, therefore, while evolving morally and mentally, must keep before their mind’s eye the unfoldment and development of their intrinsic spiritual culture which, once developed, imparts life and beauty to all undertakings – educational, technical, industrial, social, moral and political – and gives a unifying effect to their differences. This is what is termed as the highest character for a nation or an individual.
There is an unquestionable equality about all men in the flesh, yet no two men are alike. In spite of the one sun that shines upon the one world, the sunshine is not the same all over the world. Men are just the same everywhere, in their hopes and in their fears, yet at the moment, one is opposed to the other.
Day by day, things are getting darker and darker; that by itself should make thinking people hasten their preparations to receive a sudden outburst of Light that will very soon dissipate all darkness. The cleaner the reflector, the more brilliant will be the reflection.
Love for God, love for fellow-beings, love of service and love of sacrifices – in short, love in any shape and form – is the finest “give and take” in existence. Ultimately, it is love that will bring about the much-desired universal leveling of human beings all over the world, without necessarily disturbing the inherent diversities of details about mankind.
It is infinitely better to hope for the best than to fear the worst. Time is as much made out of the nights as out of the days. The world is fast approaching a glorious dawn once again, in its inevitable course of ups and downs.
My blessings to you all.
–www.lordmeher.org, p3164