The truth that spiritual, moral and behavioural values are the very crown of human achievement is not recognised. When not in office, they write articles and essays on education or indulge in parrot-talks from platforms. When the same persons achieve positions of authority, they legislate measures quite contrary to what they proclaimed earlier.

The magnet can draw iron towards itself but it cannot attract pieces of iron covered with dust and rust. Of course, speeches from platforms are good; only, practice is paralysed. Unless this illness is cured, education and real scholarship cannot manifest its worth. The dust and rust on the piece of iron have to be washed away in order that the magnet can attract. When the mind is thus polished clean, the effect will be, as the poet says, "A Mahatma has as his sign, one thought, one word, one deed." These three being in harmony is the best proof of the worth of man. This unique worth is now being disclaimed by man through his own volition. For, he is unaware of Atma Vidya, the genuine Vidya that ought to be learned.

As contemporaries of Ramakrishna Pramahamsa, there flourished many scholars, pundits and experts. But the awareness of the Atma failed to illumine them to any extent. As a result, the names of the scholars, pundits and experts are not heard of today. The name of Ramakrishna, who could not claim scholarship in any material or objective field of knowledge, has alone spread all over the world. What is the reason? Water with which sugar is mixed and plain water, both are similar when looked at. Drink! Then you distinguish the one as sherbet and the other as just water.

The words of Paramahamsa are full of supreme wisdom, the words of scholars are soaked in textual scholarship. Pretentious pundits who have only perused the pages go after monetary gains; they do not rush towards the Divine. Matchsticks that have fallen into water cannot yield fire when struck, however vigorously you try. Besides, they spoil even the box which holds them. So too, hearts soaked in worldly desires and designs may pour our parrot-exhortations but they can have at best only listeners, not practitioners. They may receive the advice but they would not accept it or act accordingly.

Every event in the world has a special cause that brought it about, namely, knowledge. Of course, without things to be known, there can be no knowledge. Knowledge itself is of two kinds: patent and latent, direct and indirect, Pratyaksha and Paroksha, real and apparent. Pratyaksha or A-paroksha, (the patent knowledge) is gained through the ear and other sense organs and through the words of others. The paroksha (for the latent), the real knowledge, knows no plurality; it analyses and understands the attractions and objects which haunt the mind. It purifies the mind and widens the vision of the heart.