Few are farsighted, for all the vanity of man. Few can look beyond just a few steps and that, too, along stereotypical lines of pleasure and its concomitant securities. But however much you try to secure pleasure, there is no security in it. Real security is in the Self of man whose existence the vast majority are unaware of and, thus, they chase the fleeting objects of the senses while the empire of the Self lies unclaimed.
Students are plagued by this ignorance and are enslaved to their impulses which run contrary to their academic well-being. In the absence of a golden spiritual ideal of life, they fritter away their precious youthful energy and time in the pursuit of fruitless pleasures whose net effect on their lives is the very nullification of their dreams which they so wishfully dream but do not work on to fulfil.
The foundation of life is spirituality and if the fundamental principles of the spiritual life of the brahmachari or the brahmacharini (continent student) are not adhered to and observed, then the result will be what the result is there before us for all to see. Despite degrees galore earned in a proliferating academic market, intellectual standards continue to decline worldwide and along with it cultural standards as well. The sensory need of the moment outstrips the more vital considerations of life as superior indigenous culture that has borne the test of time over millenia get swept and supplanted by the invading inferior popular culture of the West.
If achievement in life is to be measured in terms of the wealth one accumulates by fair or foul means, then many of these non-performers in schools and colleges may well claim to be the academically wronged citizens of the world. But let them stand clean of their inherited privileges and prove their merit in the broad daylight, and we shall admit that they were wronged indeed.
What manhood is there in rising in life based on inherited wealth, what valour in achieving so-called societal success based on familial positions of power and pelf? If you are a man, shed all this baggage of inheritance and stand clean in the clear sunshine of knowledge. Seek refuge in your own Self, the repository of all power, and standing on the firm foundation of character built by your own karma, proudly proclaim your arrival in the field of life's activity, not by vain advertisement, but by self-effacing service for the maintenance of the world order. Then alone is your education, upbringing and culture vindicated as you become the torch-bearers of the civilisation that you belong to and carry it to Himalayan heights.
My sincerest prayers go with you, O youth of my motherland, as you battle with the forces of life armed in brahmacharya (continence) and come out triumphant. May Swami Vivekananda be your guide! May the leonine Swami who so epitomised all that is best in the youth, may he in whose name we celebrate every year the glory that youth is, may he ever be with you, O blossoming young souls of India! Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!
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