“Comparison of one with the other is a fundamental mistake. Comparison creates competition. Neither anyone is ahead nor anyone is behind; nobody is below and nobody is above. Everyone is that which he is, and everyone has to be that. The teaching of ideals does not allow this. Children are told to be like Rama, to be like Buddha, to be like Gandhi. What can be more erroneous than this? Can anybody become like somebody else, or has anybody ever been able to become like somebody else? It is not possible to become Rama. Yes, one can become the Rama of the drama of Ramaleela....

That is why there is so much hypocrisy in the world. Hypocrisy is the shadow of ideals. As long as ideals are imposed, there will be hypocrisy. If hypocrisy is to be uprooted, ideals will have to be dropped. In fact, no man is born to be like anyone else. Everybody has to be just himself. Everyone has to let that seed which is hidden within him grow into a tree.

When education accepts the truth of everybody's unique and unparalleled individuality, that will be the beginning of a great revolution. Then we will not impose any structure on anybody else, but we will help what is dormant in their seed to manifest. Because of ideals a lot of violence has been taking place and we did not allow an opportunity to a person to be what he can be. In an attempt to be someone else, not only does a person not become that other person, he is not able to be what he could have been.

I very humbly would like to request you to let everyone be what he is born to be. A rose is a rose and a jasmine is a jasmine. Neither anyone is higher nor anyone is lower. The rose cannot be a jasmine and the jasmine cannot be a rose. This valuation of big and small, higher and lower, is false and absurd. Destroy these valuations. A poet is not greater than a cobbler, and the politician is also not higher than anyone. A teacher does not become higher by becoming a president.

Life is a cooperation and in it everyone has a place and everyone is necessary and unavoidable. Don't you see the insanity of ambitiousness the whole world has fallen into because of attaching reputation to position and to functions? It is sheer foolishness that a rose be taught to become a jasmine, and a grass leaf be provoked to become a lotus. What is meaningful is that the roseflower blooms to its fullness and the grass leaf blooms to its fullness, that their petals may not remain undeveloped and their fragrance may not remain unreleased.

There is no other bliss in life except that one blooms to one's full potential. That is the right direction for the work of education.

Neither is there any need to teach ideals, nor is there any need to teach people to follow anyone. All efforts should be centered towards one aim: that people can realize the fulfillment of their individuality. Then only will it be possible to be free of ambition and the fever of jealousy. Then only will a society be created which can achieve equality and peace. Only a society which is free from ambition can be classless and without exploitation.Can there be no such education, which is not based on ambition? Is mathematics and music learned for the purpose of leaving other classmates behind? Is it not possible to learn mathematics for the love of mathematics, and music for the love of music? As I see it, music can be learned and its depth experienced only if there is love for music, not by being a competitor to anyone else.

Would a competitive mind know music? Competition itself is a disharmony. Music is known by those who have sunk deep into music, not by those who have run in competition. There is an opposition between running and diving deep. Running is full of tension, sinking deep is relaxation. Running is feverish; it takes you out of yourself. To dive deep is healthy, because by diving deep within, one settles in the ultimate depths of his own self. Learning is the art of diving deep. What teaches you only how to run, I call that wrong learning.