True knowledge begins with humility and solves life's eternal problems, not temporary material conditions.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 13.8–12 — October 3, 1973, Bombay 731003BG-BOMBAY [25:34 Minutes] Bg-13.08–12_731003BG-BOMBAY Prabhupāda: So Kṛṣṇa, the supreme authority, Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is speaking the process of acquiring knowledge, jñānam. So, the first beginning of knowledge is humility. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has taught, tṛṇād api sunīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ [Cc. Ādi 17.31] Anyone... This humbleness and humility is taught everywhere. Without being gentle, humble, how one can be a man of knowledge?
But at the present moment the humility is forgotten. Everyone is proud unnecessarily. Although he's nothing, he's proud, so much so that sometimes a rascal says that "I am God." This is the modern civilization. He's so puffed-up, so proud, that one claims to become God, what to speak of other things.
No. The first thing is that one must be very humble. This is the process of Vedic civilization. Vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe [Bg. 5.18].
One has to become brāhmaṇa. Brāhmaṇa means vidyā-vinaya-sampanna. He must be learned and humble. That is brāhmaṇa.
Vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini [Bg. 5.18]. That is the first-class life. Vidya-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇa. Why brāhmaṇa is honored in the society?
Because brāhmaṇa means vidyā-vinaya-sampanne, and very humble. Vidyā-vinaya-sampanne. Vidyā means.... Vidyā dadāti namratā.
Vidyā means he must be very gentle, namra. That is vidyā. Education does not mean unnecessarily to become proud. Just like we hear that even a great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, he used to say, "What knowledge I have got?