(341) A creature's pleasures are extravagant and luxurious; sunk in lust and looking for pleasure, men undergo (again and again) birth and decay.

(14) If the embodied soul meets with death when rajas prevails, it is born among those who are attached to action; and if it meets with death when tamas prevails, it is born in the wombs of creatures devoid of reason.

(23) This may be illustrated by the following anecdote: A certain scavenger went into the perfume sellers' bazaar, and, smelling the sweet scents, fell down unconscious. People came round him and sprinkled rose-water upon him and held musk to his nose, but he only became worse. At last one came who had been a scavenger himself; he held a little filth under the man's nose and he revived instantly, exclaiming, with a sigh of satisfaction, "Ah! this is perfume indeed!" Thus in the next life a worlding will no longer find the filthy lucre and the filthy pleasures of the world; the spiritual joys of that world will be altogether alien to him and but increase his wretchedness. For the next world is a world of Spirit and of the manifestation of the Beauty of God; happy is that man who has aimed at and acquired affinity with it. All austerities, devotions, studies have the acquirement of that affinity for their aim, and that affinity is love. This is the meaning of that saying of the Koran, "He who has purified his soul is happy." Sins and lusts directly oppose the attainment of this affinity; therefore the Koran goes on to say, "and he who has corrupted his soul is miserable." Those who are gifted with spiritual insight have really grasped this truth as a fact of experience, and not a merely traditional maxim. Their clear perception of it leads them to the conviction that he by whom it was spoken was a prophet indeed, just as a man who has studied medicine knows when he is listening to a physician. This is a kind of certainty which requires no support from miracles such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, the credit of which may be shaken by apparently equally extraordinary miracles performed by magicians.

(2) As a man contemplates sense-objects, attachment for them arises, from attachment, desire for them will be born, from desire arises anger, from anger comes delusion, from delusion, comes loss of memory, from loss of memory, comes destruction of discrimination, and from destruction of discrimination he perishes.

(13) Purusha, embodied in Prakriti, experiences the gunas born of Prakriti. It is attachment to these gunas that is the cause of His birth in good and evil wombs.

(29) But, that the fruits upon the body are much pleasanter, more lovely, sweeter and milder, and with a good taste and relish, that is [because of] the third birth out of the earth, according to which the earth shall be purged and cleansed at the end of this time, and shall be set or put again into its first place; but the wrath will abide in death. The richly joyful Gate of Man.

(4) Verily, this person, by being born and obtaining a body, is joined with evils. When he departs, on dying, he leaves evils behind.

(7) 'Those whose conduct has been good, will quickly attain some good birth, the birth of a Brâhmana, or a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya. But those whose conduct has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a Kandâla.

(6) 'And he who desires the world of perfumes and garlands (gandhamâlya), by his mere will perfumes and garlands come to him, and having obtained the world of perfumes and garlands, he is happy.

(13) From this root there grow and ripen the fruits of birth, of the life-span, of all that is tasted in life.

(5) Therefore when they say, 'There will be a birth,' and 'there has been a birth' (words used at the Soma-sacrifice, and really meaning, 'He will pour out the Soma-juice,' and 'he has poured out the Soma-juice'), that is his new birth. His death is the Avabhritha ceremony (when the sacrificial Vessels are carried away to be cleansed).

(7) 'He who has no understanding, who is unmindful and always impure, never reaches that place, but enters into the round of births.'

(19) For as the exhalations which arise from the earth, and from marshes, gather into mists and cloudy masses; so the vapours of fleshly lusts bring on the soul an evil condition, scattering about the idols of pleasure before the soul.

(26) But this [third] spirit, or this birth has seven kinds or species, viz. the astringent, the sweet, the bitter, the hot: these four generate the comprehensibility in the third birth or geniture.

(84) The Depth in the Centre of the Birth or Geniture Now when these three, viz. the astringency, the bitterness, and the sweetness, rub themselves one against another; then the astringent quality grows predominant, for it is the strongest, and forcibly attracteth or draweth the sweetness together, for the sweetness is meek and extensive on account of its suppleness, and must yield to be captivated or imprisoned.

(4) "Is the babe born, the power is feeble in it, and the soul is feeble in it, and also the counterfeiting spirit is feeble in it; in a word, the three together are feeble, without any one of them sensing anything, whether good or evil, because of the load of forgetfulness which is very heavy. Moreover the body also is feeble. And the babe eateth of the delights of the world of the rulers; and the power draweth into itself from the portion of the power which is in the delights; and the soul draweth into itself from the portion of the soul which is in the delights; and the counterfeiting spirit draweth into itself from the portion of the evil which is in the delights and in its lusts. And on the other hand the body draweth into itself the matter which senseth not, which is in the delights. The destiny on the contrary taketh nothing from the delights, because it is not mingled with them, but it departeth again in the condition in which it cometh into the world. "And little by little the power and the soul and the counterfeiting spirit grow, and every one of them senseth according to its nature: the power senseth to seek after the light of the height; the soul on the other hand senseth to seek after the region of righteousness which is mixed, which is the region of the commixture; the counterfeiting spirit on the other hand seeketh after all evils and lusts and all sins; the body on the contrary senseth nothing unless it taketh up force out of the matter. "And straightway the three develop sense, every one according to its nature. And the retributive receivers assign the servitors to follow them and be witnesses of all the sins which they commit, with a view to the manner and method how they will chastize them in the judgments.

(6) When she is about to bring forth, he sprinkles her with water, saying: — 'Like as the wind doth agitate A lotus-pond on every side, So also let thy fetus stir. Let it come with its chorion. This fold of Indra's has been made With barricade, enclosed around. O Jndra, cause him to come forth—-

(59) But seeing it riseth up so swiftly, that the birth elevateth itself so suddenly, before it be fully affected with the water of life, thereupon that terror or crack keepeth its bitterness which it has out of or from the austere birth; for the beginning or inceptive birth or geniture is very austere, cold, fiery and astringent.

(12) The burden of bondage to sorrow has its root in these hindrances. It will be felt in this life, or in a life not yet manifested.