Reading section 38

8. What is (to-day) a formidable jungle of thick forests, turns in time to be a table-land as on the mount Meru.

9. Water becomes land and land becomes water. Thus the world composed of wood, grass and water becomes otherwise with all its contents in course of time.

10. Our boyhood and youth, bodies and possessions are all but transient things, and they change from one state to another, as the ever fluctuating waves of the ocean.

11. Our lives in this (mortal) world, are as unsteady as the flame of a lamp placed at the window, and the splendour of all the objects in the three worlds, is as flickering as the flashing of the lightning.

12. As a granary stored with heaps of grains is exhausted by its continued waste, so is the stock of life spent away by its repeated respirations.

13. The mind of man is as fluctuating as a flag waving in the air and filled with the dust of sin, to indicate its wavering between the paths of heaven and hell.

14. The existence of this delusive world, is as the appearance of an actress on the stage, shuffling her vests as she trudges along in her dancing.

15. It’s scenes are as changeful and fascinating as those of a magic city; and its dealings as bewitching and momentary as the glances of a juggling girl.

16. The stage of the world presents us a scene of continued dancing (of the sorceress of deception), and the deceptive glances of her eyes resembling the fleeting flashes of lightning.

17. The days, the great men, their hey-days and deeds (that are past and gone), are now retained in our memory only, and such must be our cases also in a short time.

18. Many things are going to decay and many coming anew day by day; and there is yet no end of this accursed course of events in this ever-changeful world.

19. Men degenerate into lower animals, and those again rise to humanity (by metempsychosis), gods become no-gods, and there is nothing that remains the same.

20. The sun displays every thing to light by his rays, and watches over the rotations of days and nights, to witness like time the dissolution of all things.

21. The gods Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva and all material productions, are reduced to nothingness, like the submarine fire subsiding under the waters of the deep.

22. The heaven, the earth, the air, the sky, the mountains, the rivers, and all the quarters of the globe, are subject to destruction like the dry fuel by the all-destroying fire of the last day.

23. Riches and relatives, friends, servants and affluence, are of no pleasure to him who is in constant dread of death.

24. All these are so long delightful to a sensible man, as the monster of death does not appear before the eye of his mind.

25. We have prosperity at one moment, succeeded by adversity at another; so we have health at one time, followed by sickness soon after.

26. What intelligent being is there, that is not misled by these delusions of the world, which represent things otherwise than what they are, and serve to bewilder the mind?

27. (The world is as varying) as the face of the skies; it is now as black as dark clay, and in the next moment bright with the golden hues of fair light.

28. It is now over-cast by azure clouds resembling the blue lotuses of the lake, and roaring loudly for a time and then being dumb and silent on a sudden:

29. Now studded with stars, and now glowing with the glory of the sun; then graced by the pleasant moonbeams, and at last without any light at all.

30. Who is there so sedate and firm, that is not terrified at these sudden appearances and their disappearance, and the momentary durations and final dissolution of worldly things?

31. What is the nature of this world, where we are overtaken by adversity at one moment, and elated by prosperity at another, where one is born at a time, and dies away at another?

32. One that was something else before, is born as a man in this life, and is changed to another state in course of a few days; thus there is no being that remains steadily in the same state.

33. A pot is made of clay, and cloth is made of cotton, and they are still the same dull materials of which they are composed: thus there is nothing new in this world that was not seen or known before, and that changes not its form. (_i.e._ All is but a formal and no material change).

34. The acts of creation and destruction, of diffusion, production, and sustentation follow one another, as the revolution of day and night to man.

35. It happens sometimes, that an impotent man slays a hero, and that hundreds are killed by one individual; so also a commoner becomes a noble man, and thus every thing is changeful in this varying world.

36. These bodies of men that are always changing their states, are as bodies of waters rising and falling in waves by motion of the winds.

37. Boyhood lasts but a few days, and then it is succeeded by youth which is as quickly followed by old age: thus there being no identity of the same person, how can one rely on the uniformity of external objects?

38. The mind that gets delighted in a moment and becomes dejected in the next, and assumes likewise its equanimity at another, is indeed as changeful as an actor.

39. The creator who is ever turning one thing into another in his work of creation, is like a child who makes and breaks his doll without concern.

40. The actions of producing and collecting (of grains), of feeding (one’s self) and destroying (others), come by turns to mankind like the rotation of day and night.

41. Neither adversity nor prosperity is of long continuance in the case of worldly people, but they are ever subject to appearance and disappearance by turns.

42. Time is a skilful player and plays many parts with ease; but he is chiefly skilled in tragedy, and often plays his tragic part in the affairs of men.

43. All beings are produced as fruits in the great forest of the universe, by virtue of their good and bad acts (of past lives): and _time_ like a gust of wind blasts them day by day before their maturity.

CHAPTER XXIX.

UNRELIABLENESS OF WORLDLY THINGS.

Thus is my heart consumed by the wild-fire of those great worldly evils, and there rises in me no desire of enjoying them, as there rises no mirage from a lake.

2. My existence upon earth gets bitter day by day, and though I have got some experience in it, yet its associations have made me as sour as the Nimba plant by its immersion in water.

3. I see wickedness on the increase, and righteousness on the decline in the mind of man, which like the sour _Karanja_ (crab) fruit, becomes sourer every day.

4. I see honour is eaten up every day by mutual altercations of men, using harsh words to each other as they crack the nuts under their teeth.

5. Too much eagerness for royalty and worldly enjoyments, is equally prejudicial to our welfare; as we loose our future prospects by the former, and our present happiness by the latter.

6. I take no delight in my gardens nor have any pleasure in women; I feel no joy at the prospect of riches, but enjoy my solace in my own heart and mind.

7. Frail are the pleasures of the world, and avarice is altogether intolerable; the bustle of business has broken down my heart, and (I know not) where to have my tranquility.

8. Neither do I hail death nor am I in love with my life; but remain as I do, devoid of all anxiety and care.

9. What have I to do with a kingdom and with all its enjoyments? Of what avail are riches to me, and what is the end of all our exertions? All these are but requirements of self-love, from which I am entirely free.

10. The chain of (repeated) births is a bond that binds fast all men by its strong knots of the senses; those striving to break loose from this bondage for their liberation, are (said to be) the best of men.

11. These haughty damsels whom the god of love employs to ravage the hearts of men, resemble a group of elephants subverting a lotus bed under their feet.

12. The treatment of the mind with pure reason being neglected now (in youth), it is hard to heal it afterwards (in age), when it admits of no cure.

13. It is the worldliness of man that is his true poison, while real poison is no poison to him. It is the poison of worldliness which destroys his future life, while real poison is only locally injurious to him (in his present state).

14. Neither pleasure nor pain, nor friends nor relatives, nor even life and death, can enchain (affect) the mind that has received the light of truth.

15. Teach me, Oh Bráhman! that art the best of the learned in the mysteries of the past and future, teach me so that I may soon become like one devoid of grief and fear and worldly troubles, and may have the light of truth beaming upon me.

16. The forest of ignorance is laid over with the snare of desire, it is full of the thorns of misery, and is the dreadful seat of destruction and the danger (of repeated births and deaths).

17. I can rather suffer myself to be put under the jaws of death with his rows of teeth like saws, but cannot bear the dreadly pains of worldly cares and anxieties.

18. It is a gloomy error in this world to think that I have this and have not the other; it serves to toss about our minds as a gust of wind disperses the dust of the earth.

19. It is the thread of avarice that links together all living beings like a chaplet of pearls; the mind serves to twirl about this chain, but pure consciousness sits quiet to observe its rotation.

20. I who am devoid of desires, would like to break this ornamental chain of worldliness, hanging about me as a deadly serpent, in the same manner, as a lion breaks asunder the net (which is laid to ensnare him).

21. Do you now, O most learned sage, scatter the mist which has overspread the forest of my heart, and the darkness which has overcast my mind, by the light of true knowledge.

22. There are no anxieties, O sage! which cannot be put to an end by the society of good minded men; the darkness of night can be well removed by moon-beams.