Someone who has never seen the ocean, who has at most glimpsed a pond, when brought before a river will declare: there is no water body larger than this anywhere on earth, nor could there possibly be. Whatever you might tell them, they will insist again and again that nowhere else does water gather in greater abundance than in this river. The curious thing is, one who has never learned to see the ocean—it's terribly difficult to take such a person to the ocean's shore! All human greatness and smallness is imposed, assumed. If everyone came to believe that iron was the most precious metal, then gold's value would plummet, and everyone would start wearing iron jewelry. It could even happen that in some particular region, iron is valued more than gold. If the people of that region want to call iron more precious than gold, let them just not cross their regional boundaries! There's no harm in this. If someone who has never seen the ocean can live their entire life denying the ocean's existence, then this false grandeur of the river will create not the slightest hindrance to their way of living. The trouble begins when someone who has seen the ocean comes before them and starts telling river stories, offering advice: "Accept it—there is no water body larger than a river. What you think you know, you know wrongly." Their belief runs so deep that they will never accept that water bodies larger than rivers exist on earth. One who has seen the ocean can certainly be drawn toward the river, but you can't do the dragging by claiming the river is the largest water body. Let us learn to accept that what we know is not the end of all knowing. Let me turn to other matters. The real point is: you have to pass the exam. Whichever teacher's private tutoring helps you pass the exam, he is the greatest. There is no teacher greater than him. No notes can be better than his handwritten ones. All those who don't study in his batch—their lives are worthless. What's the point of studying if you can't get private tutoring in such a teacher's batch? Everyone must be dragged by the neck to this teacher's private lessons. This is duty! Those who don't want to come are good-for-nothing—foolish—senseless. Now let's come to those rare few who pass whenever they sit for an exam. I mean, passing isn't their main concern. They know how to pass exams. What they need is to come first in the exam. What good will it do them to study under a teacher whose batch only helps you pass, whose handwritten notes only get you passing marks? They can already do that much on their own, they don't need to go to any teacher. Someone who breaks into a sweat just trying to pass will never grasp their mindset, even if they die trying. They also know that if they went to such a teacher, they could become the best student in that batch, everyone would respect them highly. But there's nothing to learn there that they don't already know or need. Do you think they'll go study there? Why would they go, tell me? To pass? They can pass without going there too. For someone who has never been able to pass an exam, being able to pass might be something special, but for them, merely passing has no value whatsoever. It could also be that they don't just want to pass, they want to strengthen their foundation of knowing and understanding too. Someone who struggles just to move to the next class won't share their way of thinking. Wasting time trying to learn things that cannot challenge the boundaries of our knowledge is pure foolishness. What is easy to learn might not be essential to learn. What is easy not to understand might not be necessary to understand. A student who struggles just to pass exams cannot even begin to guess what a student who wants to come first in exams actually wants. Notes that satisfy a good student might be impossible for average or poor students to even sink their teeth into. This is natural. The book I believe makes life worthless if unread—well, Joe Biden became President of America without reading that book. Still, I could say Biden's life is indeed worthless! Rather than laughing in fields and streets with such a successful life as mine, it would be better to sit in the White House crying with such a failed life as his. Most importantly, those who walk around with arbitrary judgments like "so-and-so's life is failed, such-and-such's life is dark" hanging from their necks—if you observe them carefully, you'll see their lives contain no achievements worthy of recognition. It's very necessary to move away from the bad habit of making sudden judgments in emotional fits while there's still time. What we like, we can at most share with others, but our manner of sharing should contain no suggestion that makes it seem we're belittling anyone or forcefully proclaiming the superiority of our preferences. Nothing in this world is indispensable. There are no must-read books on earth, no must-do tasks, no must-follow customs and rituals. Different people have different opinions, different paths. When someone goes out of their way to dismiss everything I like, while shamelessly advertising their own preferences and imposing various extreme and harsh opinions, they seem mentally disabled to me. Can I dismiss as worthless and useless what I don't understand, what I don't want to understand? There are many who don't want to understand what I understand. There are many who don't want to hold in their hearts what I have held in mine and found joy in. There are many who mastered what is beyond even my comprehension long ago, when I hadn't even learned to understand. There will always be variety in how we live our lives and beliefs. What keeps someone living well cannot possibly be false. These simple truths must be understood. Not understanding them means remaining foolish. Then people will be amused by the errors in my beliefs, and I will gradually become ridiculous. Those whose mental position is much higher will feel pity for the extent of my understanding when they see such boasting. Let me share a personal experience. I thought a colleague of mine was foolish when I heard he doesn't take Napa tablets for fever. Later I learned that for fever he takes a tablet made in America that is a thousand times more advanced than Napa. If you want to embrace something excellent, you must first prepare yourself to receive that excellence. One who is not prepared will never be able to distinguish what is excellent from what is mediocre or inferior. To a goat, everything in the world is jackfruit leaves. Dismissing everything beyond our comprehension is the very definition of foolishness. If someone remains content with their foolishness or stays silent about it, that can be accepted. Foolishness is always personal. But if they attack others trying to justify their foolishness, that becomes quite unseemly. Suppose what they have achieved is not foolishness but knowledge. Does that mean this knowledge must be distributed to everyone, even if it annoys them? What is knowledge to me might be utterly worthless to someone else, isn't that so? Everyone thinks their own mother's cooking tastes the best. But there are proper ways to express this. Going around calling all other mothers' cooking inedible, poisonous—that's not the right approach, I believe. Tell me, which mother doesn't think even her limping son is capable of becoming world champion in a running competition? Where all my thoughts and understanding end, perhaps someone's journey began long ago, when I hadn't even learned to think. Pride doesn't suit anyone, but when you see someone it doesn't suit making grand pronouncements, it's amusing. Not everyone finds it amusing, though—many might even sit down at their feet accepting them as guru. Who sits at whose feet tells you the capabilities of both guru and disciple. One who has just learned the vowels অ and আ—to them, the cow essay from guidebooks is the world's greatest literature! Let it be so, no problem. But when they lift this "great literature" above their heads and begin a dance of destruction, blinded by emotion, then it becomes quite irritating to watch. Let us remember: the more reckless we become with our opinions, the more contemptible we become in everyone's eyes. Let me return to the earlier analogy. I will decide myself which teacher to take private lessons from. If I even fail because of this, I'll be the one failing—what does it matter to anyone else? Does my journey to hell reduce your chances of reaching heaven by even an atom? Will you get commission for dragging me tied and bound to heaven? One who can't write two lines is teaching writing! One who can't walk two steps is teaching walking! One who can't think two thoughts is teaching thinking! The blind person extends their hand to help me cross the road! Is this how it should be? Yes, if I approach someone seeking a teacher, that's a different matter. Pushy people are always unseemly. Everyone looks at them with suspicion. Those who shout "Come to our car, see our ointment!" right in your ear—when people notice their own skin irritation, will anyone buy that ointment? Of course, those who enjoy scratching will welcome such ointment!
When we were children, we would go study wherever the good students took private lessons. We never went anywhere after looking at the mediocre or poor students. We would find out where the class topper studied. If we couldn’t become first, we could at least get close to first place! A donkey’s friend is another donkey! From someone who has never accomplished anything in life, there’s only one thing to learn—what not to do in life! Even now in adulthood, those same habits persist. What it means to be a good student, what good students do and don’t do, what their priorities are… far from knowing such things, even mediocre and poor students can’t begin to guess. What a bad student takes pride in as an achievement, a good student might not even consider an achievement at all. Keeping one simple wisdom in mind can save you from many unwanted situations. The wisdom is this: if I need advice, I will never force myself upon someone who would never come to me for counsel—either because I lack the qualification to advise them, or because they don’t consider me worthy of seeking advice from.