Watch the YouTube video below or read its full Transcript by scrolling down to the bottom after reading my own thoughts on the great speech that Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former President of India delivered at the Kerala University many years ago .
Dr. Radhakrishnan said: It is not enough to only think right … it is imperative to feel nobly … it is only then can we do what is right.
A question that arose then immediately within my mind was this: How does one get to “think right” in the first place? How is one to know if one’s thoughts are “right”?
The Upanishad gave me the answer to the question in a terse but very profound “vaakya” or pronouncement:
“सत्यं वद। धर्मं चर। स्वाध्यायान्मा प्रमदः।”
(“Satyam vada. Dharmam chara. Swadhyayan maa pramadah”)
The true test to know if your mind or “buddhi” (intellect) is thinking right is to be be mindful of what you speak. “Sathyam Vada”. What comes out of one’s mind is, invariably, whatever is going on inside one’s mind. If the Truth is always spoken by all men, it will mean surely then that the thought behind all speech would always be right. It is only behind untruthful speech that there is always lurking unrighteous thought.
Now, it is not always easy for us to know what is Truth or what is less than Truth. Sometimes as we all know only too well, it is “Convenience” or what is expedient that often defines for us what goes by the name of Truth. Which is why often it is said Man is always “very economical with the Truth” in all dealings with fellowmen and the world at large. So, in that case, Truth becomes (as is often cynically observed) very relative : i.e. one man’s Truth is another man’s Untruth.
So, given the above relativism of Truth, how then are we to ascertain if one is thinking right at all?
Again , it is to the Upanishad vaakya that that we may turn to obtain a clear answer: “dharmam chara”…
One must always be mindful, says the Upanishad, about whether what one is about to do is the righteous (not self-righteous) thing to do.
A deed that otherwise might seem very thoughtless might actually yet be very right. So, it is our deeds in life, in the final reckoning, that are the most authentic testimony to — as Dr.Radhakrishnan in his eloquent speech puts it — whether we are thinking right, we are feeling nobly and we are speaking truthfully.
The Upanishad then already anticipates our inevitable, corollary question too: How is one to know Dharma?
The answer given is categorical: स्वाध्यायान्मा प्रमदः।…. Do not neglect self-study (swadhyaya)…!
Ceaseless “swadhyaya” means only this: faithful study of Veda-Vedantic scriptures which are indeed our country’s greatest and most fundamental source of the highest Truths and highest Wisdom. They contain invaluable guidelines to how Man can live wisely and fulfil the utmost potential of his indwelling human spirit.
That high sentiment and message, simple but powerful, are precisely what Dr.Radhakrishnan in his speech below has delivered. He defines too, at the same time, what the true purpose of Indian Universities is:
“We deal here with human beings, not with dead material. It is our ambition to make them full human beings”.
This speech of the former President of India, I wish, would be read, memorised and sung like a personal anthem by all the Vice Chancellors of all Universities in India.
Jai Hind! Jai Bharath! 🇮🇳
Sudarshan Madabushi
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Video-link and Transcript ⬇️
This is All India Radio. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former President of India, was a scholar and a thinker. Addressing the silver jubilee function of Kerala University, he emphasized that the aim of every university should be to help the students to think rightly, to act nobly.
“Universities are the means by which the traditions of a country—intellectual, artistic, and ethical, as well as technical skills—are transmitted from one generation to another. These are institutions which make for the progress of any community. We deal here with human beings, not with dead material. It is our ambition to make them full human beings.
Education is for man to think, to feel, to do, to be. These are the aims which we should set before ourselves. Without thought, nothing great can be achieved. Even when the gods are supposed to have performed tapas, Panini tells us tapas is reflection, it is discussion, it is reviewing matters. We must think.
All the progress we have achieved in this world is due to the work of the great thinkers, and so far as this thinking process is concerned, it is not right for us to segregate ourselves. Most of us think that we think. Many of us are afraid to think. They would rather be dead than think, because it’s too dangerous to think or to start innovations. For one man who thinks, a thousand repeat what that man says and they don’t think anything at all.
But the progress of the world is due to the thought mechanism of human beings. All the great inventions which we have had in recent times, which have led to the alleviation of misery—the discovery of anesthesia, radiotherapy, nuclear energy—these are all the works done by enterprising individuals whose minds were perpetually at work. To them we owe a great deal.
But to think is not enough. We may have the right thought, but we do not have the inclination to put that right thought into practice. We know now that nuclear energy, if used for wrong purposes, would bring about the destruction of humanity, but we are not afraid of the disastrous consequences. The human being is so made that, even if he rationally anticipates the consequences of a particular course of action, he does not shrink from it. Something more is necessary.
We know the right; we cannot do it. We know the wrong; we cannot abstain from it. Two thousand years ago, Aristotle made out that ideas are not enough. Ideas may become inert, they may become inactive, they may not enter into the life of a society. You must persuade the people; you must make them love the right and hate the wrong.
There it is—this next object of feeling nobly, feeling rightly, feeling for the right thing—that comes. We have to think rightly and feel nobly. If we do the two things together, it will be possible for us to do the right. In other words, inflexible determination—great will—these things can be used for translating the ideas into realities. The right ideas can be put into practice if we are able to love them, to feel for them, to make all our emotions concentrate on them, and make them understand that this is not merely intellectually right but it is emotionally noble.
Thank you.
End of Speech