(3) Eager to escape sorrow, men rush into sorrow; from desire of happiness they blindly slay their own happiness, enemies to themselves; they hunger for happiness and suffer manifold pains; whence shall come one so kind as he who can satisfy them with all manner of happiness, allay all their pains, and shatter their delusion — whence such a friend, and whence such a holy deed? He who repays good deed with good deed is praised; what shall be said of the Son of Enlightenment, who does kindness unsought? He who sets a banquet before a few is called a " doer of righteousness," and is honoured by the world, because in his pride he entertains men for half a day with a brief largesse of mere food; but what of him who bestows on a measureless number of creatures a satisfaction of all desires unbounded in time and perishing not when the world of heaven perishes? Such is the Master of the Banquet, the Son of the Conqueror; whosoever sins in his heart against him, saith the Lord, shall abide in hell as many ages as the moments of his sin. But he whose spirit is at peace with them shall thence get abundant fruit; and truly, wrong to the Sons of the Conqueror can be done only by great effort, but kindness towards them is easy. I do homage to the bodies of them in whom has arisen the choice jewel of the Thought, and even the ill-treatment of whom leads to happiness; in these mines of bliss I seek my refuge.

(1) Death said: 'The good is one thing, the pleasant another; these two, having different objects, chain a man. It is well with him who clings to the good; he who chooses the pleasant, misses his end.'

(6) And thus it is that they who do not know and do not tread Devotion's Path, do dare to call man beautiful and good, though he have ne'er e'en in his visions seen a whit that's Good, but is enveloped with every kind of bad, and thinks the bad is good, and thus doth make unceasing use of it, and even feareth that it should be ta'en from him, so straining every nerve not only to preserve but even to increase it. Such are the things that men call good and beautiful, Asclepius - things which we cannot flee or hate; for hardest thing of all is that we've need of them and cannot live without them.

(5) Let them not then say, that he who does wrong and sins transgresses through the agency of demons; for then he would be guiltless. But by choosing the same things as demons, by sinning; being unstable, and light, and fickle in his desires, like a demon, he becomes a demoniac man. Now he who is bad, having become, through evil, sinful by nature, becomes depraved, having what he has chosen; and being sinful, sins also in his actions. And again, the good man does right. Wherefore we call not only the virtues, but also right actions, good. And of things that are 503. good we know that some are desirable for themselves, as knowledge; for we hunt for nothing from it when we have it, but only [seek] that it be with us, and that we be in uninterrupted contemplation, and strive to reach it for its own sake. But other things are desirable for other considerations, such as faith, for escape from punishment, and the advantage arising from reward, which accrue from it. For, in the case of many, fear is the cause of their not sinning; and the promise is the means of pursuing obedience, by which comes salvation. Knowledge, then, desirable as it is for its own sake, is the most perfect good; and consequently the things which follow by means of it are good. And punishment is the cause of correction to him who is punished; and to those who are able to see before them he becomes an example, to prevent them failing into the like.

(4) We say, then, that it is characteristic of the same persons to vilify philosophy, and run down faith, and to praise iniquity and felicitate a libidinous life. But now faith, if it is the voluntary assent of the soul, is still the doer of good things, the foundation of right conduct; and if Aristotle defines strictly when he teaches that poiein is applied to the irrational creatures and to inanimate things, while prattein is applicable to men only, let him correct those who say that God is the maker (poihths) of the universe. And what is done (prakton), he says, is as good or as necessary. To do wrong, then, is not good, for no one does wrong except for some other thing; and nothing that is necessary is voluntary. To do wrong, then, is voluntary, so that it is not necessary. But the good differ especially from the bad in inclinations and good desires. For all depravity of soul is accompanied with want of restraint; and he who acts from passion, acts from want of restraint and from depravity.

(4) The nature of action (enjoined by the Sastras) and of wrong action (prohibited by the Sastras) and also of inaction should be known, because deep and difficult to understand is the path of action.

(11) "I would never part with virtue for unrighteous gain." But plainly, unrighteous gain is pleasure and pain, toil and fear; and, to speak comprehensively, the passions of the soul, the present of which is delightful, the future vexatious. "For what is the profit," it is said, "if you gain the world and lose the soul?" It is clear, then, that those who do not perform good actions, do not know what is for their own advantage. And if so, neither are they capable of praying aright, so as to receive from God good things; nor, should they receive them, will they be sensible of the boon; nor, should they enjoy them, will they enjoy worthily what they know not; both from their want of knowledge how to use the good things given them, and from their excessive stupidity, being ignorant of the way to avail themselves of the divine gifts.

(34) Transgressions are injury, falsehood, theft, incontinence, envy; whether committed, or caused, or assented to, through greed, wrath, or infatuation; whether faint, or middling, or excessive; bearing endless, fruit of ignorance and pain. Therefore must the weight be cast on the other side.

(14) The fruit of a good action is said to be good and clean; the fruit of rajas is pain; and the fruit of tamas is ignorance.

(13) Those alone are dear to divinity, who are hostile to injustice.

Those things which the body necessarily requires, are easily to be procured by all men, without labor and molestation; but those things to the attainment of which labor and molestation are requisite, are objects of desire, not to the body, but to depraved opinion. Aristoxenus Pythag. Stob. p. 132.

(18) Better is one’s own duty though destitute of merits or incomplete than the duty of another well performed; the man who performs action ordained by his own nature does not incur sin.

(2) Always therefore the good actions, as better, attach to the better and ruling spirit; and voluptuous and sinful actions are attributed to the worse, the sinful one.

(1) Now that is in our power, of which equally with its opposite we are masters, - as, say to philosophize or not, to believe or disbelieve. In consequence, then, of our being equally masters of each of the opposites, what depends on us is found possible. Now the commandments may be done or not done by us, who, as is reasonable, are liable to praise and blame. And those, again, who are punished on account of sins committed by them, are punished for them alone; for what is done is past, and what is done can never be undone.

(1) ALL the righteousness, the charity, the worship of the Blessed, that have been wrought in thousands of aeons, are destroyed by ill-will. There is no guilt equal to hatred, no mortification equal to long-suffering; and therefore one should diligently practise patience in divers ways. While the arrow of hate is in the heart, none can have a peaceful mind in equipoise, or feel the joy of kindliness, none can win sleep or calm. They whom a master cursed with an evil spirit honours with wealth and favours, and who dwell under his protection, seek nevertheless to destroy him. Even his friends are in terror of him. His gifts win for him no service. In short, there is no way for a passionate man to find happiness. He who stoutly fights against wrath, the enemy that brings these and other sorrows, wins joy in this world and beyond. Nourished by discontent, hatred grows swollen and destroys me; and discontent springs from doing unpleasing works or^from^the baffling of desire. Then I will cut off the nourishment of my enemy, for this foeman's sole purpose is to slay me. My cheerfulness shall not be disturbed, even by the most untoward events; discontent works no good, and only destroys merit. What profits discontent if there is a remedy; and what profits it if there is none? We shrink from sorrow, defeat, rude speech, and dishonour for ourselves and our friends, and from the opposite of these for our enemy. Happiness is hard to win, pain comes readily; there is no escape from life save by pain; then be firm, 0 my spirit! The Karnatas, the " little children of Durga," suffer the agonies of burning and maiming in a vain hope of salvation; why then shall I be fainthearted? There is nothing which practice cannot make easy; so by practice in slight sufferings we learn to bear great pains. Flies, stinging creatures, gnats, hunger, thirst, and other like pains, fierce itch and other like miseries — lookest thou upon these as profitless? Before cold, heat, rain, wind, travel, sickness, bondage, and blows be not tender and delicate, else thy anguish will increase. Some there are who at the sight of their own blood become exceedingly valorous, and some at sight of others' blood fall into faintness. This comes about through firmness and feebleness of spirit; then he who is unconquerable by pain will overcome suffering. Even in pain the wise man will not let the calm of his spirit be disturbed; for he is at war with the Passions, and in war suffering abounds. They who overcome their foes by presenting their bosoms to the enemy's blows are " victors," " heroes "; the rest are " slayers of the slain."

(1) What is voluntary is either what is by desire, or what is by choice, or what is of intention. Closely allied to each other are these things - sin, mistake, crime. It is sin, for example, to live luxuriously and licentiously; a misfortune, to wound one's friend in ignorance, taking him for an enemy; and crime, to violate graves or commit sacrilege. Sinning arises from being unable to determine what ought to be done, or being unable to do it; as doubtless one falls into a ditch either through not knowing, or through inability to leap across through feebleness of body. But application to the training of ourselves, and subjection to the commandments, is in our own power; with which if we will have nothing to do, by abandoning ourselves wholly to lust, we shall sin, nay rather, wrong our own soul. For the noted Laius says in the tragedy: "None of these things of which you admonish me have escaped me; But notwithstanding that I am in my senses, Nature compels me;" i.e., his abandoning himself to passion.

(5) In heedlessness, wrath, or lust for women and other things beyond their reach, men bring themselves into distress from thorns, lack of food, and the like. Some destroy themselves by hanging, springing down from a height, taking poison or unwholesome measure of food, or doing unrighteousness. Since under the sway of the passions they harm thus their own persons, which they love, how can they spare the bodies of others? Maddened by passions, striving for their own destruction, there can be only pity for them; how should we be angered? If it is the nature of fools to hurt their fellows, it is as wrong for me to feel anger against them as it is to be wroth with the fire which naturally burns me; and if again it is a passing frailty, and creatures are upright of nature, then it is as wrong to be angered against them as against the air when smoke fills it.

(18) That action which is done by one longing for desires, or again with egotism, or with much effort, is declared to be Rajasic (Karma).

(334) evil to the good? Clearly. But the good are just and would not do an injustice? True. Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong? Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral. Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust? I like that better. But see the consequence:—Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides. Very true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words ‘friend’ and ‘enemy.’ What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked. We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good. And how is the error to be corrected? We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies? Yes. And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?

(6) Let us see what terrors the law announces. If it is the things which hold an intermediate place between virtue and vice, such as poverty, disease, obscurity, and humble birth, and the like, these things civil laws hold forth, and are: praised for so doing. And those of the Peripatetic school, who introduce three kinds of good things, and think that their opposites are evil, this opinion suits. But the law given to us enjoins us to shun what are in reality bad things - adultery, uncleanness, paederasty, ignorance, wickedness, soul-disease, death (not that which severs the soul from the body, but that which severs the soul from truth). For these are vices in reality, and the workings that proceed from them are dreadful and terrible. "For not unjustly," say the divine oracles, "are the nets spread for birds; for they who are accomplices in blood treasure up evils to themselves." How, then, is the law still said to be not good by certain heresies that clamorously appeal to the apostle, who says, "For by the law is the knowledge of sin?" To whom we say, The law did not cause, but showed sin.

(18) These praises and honours destroy my welfare and horror of the flesh; they arouse envy of the worthy and anger at their fortune. Then they who rise against me to crush my glory and honour are in truth working to save me from falling into hell. If I seek deliverance, gains and honours are a fetter that befit me not: how can I hate them that release me from this bond? By the blessing of the Enlightened, as it were, they become a door barring my way into sorrow; how can I hate them? " But he hinders me from righteous works " — nay, it is not well to be angry for this. There is no work of mortification equal to long-suffering, and surely this is an occasion for it. If by my sin here I show not patience towards him, it is I who hinder myself from doing righteousness when the occasion for it has come. If one thing exists not without another, and exists when the other is present, the latter is the cause of the former: how can it be called a hindrance to it? The beggar who comes at the due hour makes no hindrance to the almsgiving; and if a monk comes who can administer the vows, it is not called a hindrance to our taking the vows. We find many beggars in the world, but few who will do us hurt; for if I do no wrong, no man will wrong me. Then an enemy is like a treasure found in my house, won without labour of mine; I must cherish him, for he is a helper in the way to Enlightenment. Thus this fruit of my patience is won by me and by him together; to him must be given the first share, for he is the cause of my patience.