Education is for Life

A pandit engaged a boat to take him across the flooded Godavari river. When the journey across the river started, he began a conversation with the boatman. He asked the boatman whether he had any schooling, and when the boatman replied that he had none, the pandit said sadly, “Alas! A quarter of your life has gone to waste. It is as if you have drowned those years in the Godavari.”

The pandit asked the boatman whether he could tell read the time from his watch. The boatman confessed he neither had a watch nor cared to have one. The pandit deplored him and said, “Half your life has gone into the Godavari.” His next question was about newspapers —did the boatman read any, what was his favourite paper?

The boatman replied that he did not read any and did he care to know the news. He had enough to worry about already. The pandit declared forth right that three-quarters of the boatman’s life had been wasted.

Just then, the sky darkened with storm clouds, and there was an imminent threat of rain. The boatman turned to the pandit. It was now the boatman’s turn to throw a question at the scholarly boat rider. He asked, “Can you swim?” When the frightened passenger confessed, he could not, the boatman said, “In that case, your entire life is now going to merge in the Godavari.”

This is the case of the educated in India today. They do not have the education that will help them in distress or dire need to win back their mental poise, said Bhagawan Baba in a discourse on September 12, 1963.

Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Volume 3, Chapter 24, Be Queens, September 12,1963.