23rd March 1919
Some college students had come to see the Belur Math (monastery). Swami Shivananda was sitting in the eastern verandah of the main building overlooking the Ganga. The students had just finished their University examinations and were preparing to go home for the vacation.
Swami: “You have a long vacation before you. How are you going to spend it? What is the use of spending it in merry-making and playing at cards? Having come to this place take a few of our ideas and try to work them out. Raise a small fund amongst yourselves, buy a few homeopathic medicines, and when you go home serve the sick and the poor of the locality by giving them medicine free and by nursing them. Freely mix with the depressed classes and inquire about their welfare and their wants. If you do this and in addition nurse them when they are ill and give them medicines, then they will feel very much obliged. Run a night school also for them. Give them oral instruction in history, sanitation, hygiene, and tell them about Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. In this way give them education. They have to be raised if the country is to rise. At first, probably, they will be suspicious about your ways and means. But in time, when they will find that you have no selfish motive, they will be won over. You also try to be selfless. It is only by doing selfless work in this way that the mind gets purified, And when the mind is purified, even the slightest suggestion would fill your heart with devotion for the Lord. If the mind be not purified, you may practise Japa (repetition of God’s name) to any extent, nothing will result by way of spiritual progress. What can Japa do if the mind is full of selfishness, jealousy, hatred, etc. ? It is because the country is engrossed in Tamas that Swamiji has prescribed work as a means to raise it up. If you cannot give up your selfishness for the good of the many, of what use is it merely getting degrees? What is the use of taking up jobs? You are the descendants of the ancient Rishis, the pure Hindu blood is in your veins. Are you not ashamed of this slavery? You talk of patriotism. What else can be greater patriotism than this love for the poor and being of service to them ?
“If you really want to love your country do as I have said. Arise, awake, shake off all lethargy, be firmly established in truth and spread education, sanitation, etc. among the masses-in every village, subdivision, and district. Your spirit of renunciation and of service will inspire others and the country will be soon raised. Spend every vacation in this way, then something permanent may come out of it. Of course, along with it you will have play and recreation also. But merely idling away the whole of the vacation and singing patriotic songs will not help the country materially.”