A really cultured learned fellow is far above a politician. Because a politician is honored by the votes of his countrymen while a cultured and learned fellow is honored everywhere all over the world. So we say that Rabindranath and Gandhi were never dependant for the votes of their countrymen but they were honored all over the world for their cultural contribution.
The same Chanakya Pandit defined the standard of learning. The standard of learning had to be testified by its result and not by the manner of University degrees. He said that one, who looks upon all women, except one's married wife as mothers—all other's wealth as the pebbles on the street and all living being as one's own self,—is really learned fellow. He never stressed on the point of standard of how many grammars, rhetorics or other books of knowledge one might have gone through, or how many Doctorates of different Universities one might have been decorated with.
At the present moment we know very well that a few men look upon other women, besides one's married wife as mothers; very few men will look upon other's wealth as pebbles on the street and very few men will try to behave with other living beings as one wants to be treated oneself.
The sages of old age discovered it by spiritual culture that man's energy should be utilized only for spiritual realization. Not to speak of Lord Sri Krishna who spoke the philosophy of Bhagwat Gita near about 5000 years ago, we know that within 2000 years of human history no sages including Jesus Christ, prophet Mohammed, Lord Buddha, Acharya Shankara, Madhya, Ramanuja or even Lord Chaitanya gave any importance to materialistic way of living. Material necessities were always subordinate to the spiritual realisation. They saw it that the bread problem, clothing problem and shelter problem are never solved by material activities because in the law of nature the elephant is given the whole jungle to eat and the little ant is given a grain of sugar to solve their respective bread problems and yet the animals remain hungry. It is not the question of a jungle or a grain of sugar that can solve our bread problem but it is the question of real food that can quench the hunger of human being and revitalise him to proper life. Human being therefore should not be encouraged to satisfy his unsatiated hunger like the giant elephant or the little ant but he should be trained up otherwise which shall provide for his real food.
The wonderful temples, the mosques and the cathedrals of past centuries were built up to give them the real food and were not built up by blind or unquestioning faith. The were built up on full faith and reasoning which were based on the deductive process. The Vedas, the Bible or the Koran would ask the human being to make proper use of his conserved energy in the transcendental service of God and unsophisticated men in the old days would follow such instruction unhesitatingly for realizing the Absolute Truth. Such temples, mosques were therefore centres of high culture to provide real food to human consciousness.