(9) Mark how fortune brings endless misfortune by the miseries of winning it, guarding it, and losing it; men's thoughts cling altogether to their riches, so that they have not a moment to free themselves from the sorrows of life. Thus they who are possessed by desire suffer much and enjoy little, as the ox that drags a cart gets but a morsel of grass. For the sake of this morsel of enjoyment, which falls easily to the beast's lot, man, blinded by his destiny, wastes this brief fortune, that is so hard to win. For all time lasts the struggle for the welfare of the mean body that is doomed to depart and fall into hell, and even a millionth part of this labour would win the rank of the Enlightened. Greater is the pain of them that are possessed by desire than the pain of the way of holiness, and no Enlightenment comes to them. Neither sword, nor poison, nor fire, nor fall into abysses, nor foemen may be compared to the desires, if we bear in mind the agonies of hell and the like. Then shrink from the desires, and learn delight in solitude, in the peaceful woodlands void of strife and toil. Happy are they who are fanned by the sweet silent breezes of the forest, as they walk upon the pleasant rock-floors broad as in a palace and cooled by the moonbeams' sandal ointment, and take thought for the weal of their fellow-creatures! Dwelling anywhere for what time they will, in deserted sanctuary or cave or beneath the trees, saved from the weariness of winning and guarding possessions, they wander fancy-free at pleasure. Indra himself can hardly win the bliss of contentment that is enjoyed by him who wanders homeless at his own free will and unattached to aught.

(16) "In all these cases, each individual adopted the profitable course in preference to the injurious course. And the world calls them virtuous, whereby they acquire a reputation at which they never aimed." "It is necessary," argued Discontent, "to cling to reputation. If all pleasures are to be denied to the body and one's energies to be concentrated upon health with a view to the prolongation of life, such life would be itself nothing more than the prolonged illness of a confirmed invalid." "Happiness," said Complacency, "is to be found in contentment. Too much is always a curse, most of all in wealth. "The ears of the wealthy man ring with sounds of sweet music. His palate is cloyed with rich meats and wine. In the pursuit of pleasure, business is forgotten. This is confusion. "He eats and drinks to excess, until his breathing is that of one carrying a heavy load up a hill. This is misery. "He covets money to surround himself with comforts. He covets power to vanquish rivals. But his quiet hours are darkened by diabetes and dropsy. This is disease. "Even when, in his desire for wealth, he has piled up an enormous fortune, he still goes on and cannot desist. This is shame. "Having no use for the money he has collected, he still hugs it to him and cannot bear to part with it. His heart is inflamed, and he ever seeks to add more to the pile. This is unhappiness.

(4) If one is fortunate among men and wealthy, lord over others, best provided with all human enjoyments — that is the highest bliss of men. Now a hundredfold the bliss of men is one bliss of those who have won the fathers' world. Now a hundredfold the bliss of those who have won the fathers' world is one bliss in the Gandharva- world. A hundredfold the bliss in the Gandharva-world is one bliss of the gods who gain their divinity by meritorious works. A hundredfold the bliss of the gods by works is one bliss of the gods by birth and of him who is learned in the Vedas, who is without crook- edness, and who is free from desire. A hundredfold the bliss of the gods by birth is one bliss in the Prajapati- world and of him who is learned in the Vedas, who is without crookedness, and who is free from desire. A hundredfold the bliss in the Prajapati-world is one bliss in the Brahma-world and of him who is learned in the Vedas, who is without crookedness, and who is free from desire. This truly is the highest world. This is the Brahma-world, O king/ — Thus spake Yajnavalkya, [Janaka said:] c I will give you, noble Sir, a thousand [cows]. Speak further than this, for my release.' Then Yajnavalkya feared, thinking: ' This intelligent king has driven me out of every corner.' l

(16) To this gods and men who were saved attested, thus, the Three Treasures appeared in the saha world to save living beings with this profound Dharma which, when applied, fails never to Nirvana lead. You are the king physician who destroys old age, illness and death. So your unfathomable Dharma of boundless merits, I salute.

(14) For man, and especially the Sage, is not the Couplement of soul and body: the proof is that man can be disengaged from the body and disdain its nominal goods.

It would be absurd to think that happiness begins and ends with the living-body: happiness is the possession of the good of life: it is centred therefore in Soul, is an Act of the Soul- and not of all the Soul at that: for it certainly is not characteristic of the vegetative soul, the soul of growth; that would at once connect it with the body.

A powerful frame, a healthy constitution, even a happy balance of temperament, these surely do not make felicity; in the excess of these advantages there is, even, the danger that the man be crushed down and forced more and more within their power. There must be a sort of counter-pressure in the other direction, towards the noblest: the body must be lessened, reduced, that the veritable man may show forth, the man behind the appearances.

Let the earth-bound man be handsome and powerful and rich, and so apt to this world that he may rule the entire human race: still there can be no envying him, the fool of such lures. Perhaps such splendours could not, from the beginning even, have gathered to the Sage; but if it should happen so, he of his own action will lower his state, if he has any care for his true life; the tyranny of the body he will work down or wear away by inattention to its claims; the rulership he will lay aside. While he will safeguard his bodily health, he will not wish to be wholly untried in sickness, still less never to feel pain: if such troubles should not come to him of themselves, he will wish to know them, during youth at least: in old age, it is true, he will desire neither pains nor pleasures to hamper him; he will desire nothing of this world, pleasant or painful; his one desire will be to know nothing of the body. If he should meet with pain he will pit against it the powers he holds to meet it; but pleasure and health and ease of life will not mean any increase of happiness to him nor will their contraries destroy or lessen it.

When in the one subject, a positive can add nothing, how can the negative take away?

(24) 'If you can think of any boon equal to that, choose wealth, and long life. Be (king), Nakiketas, on the wide earth. I make thee the enjoyer of all desires.'

(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.

(6) "Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, find no place in that man's breast; for to him all creation is One. And all things being thus united in One, his body and limbs are but as dust of the earth, and life and death, beginning and end, are but as night and day, and cannot destroy his peace. How much less such trifles as gain or loss, misfortune or good fortune? "He rejects rank as so much mud. For he knows that if a man is of honourable rank, the honour is in himself, and cannot be lost by change of condition, nor exhausted by countless modifications of existence. Who then can grieve his heart? Those who practise Tao understand the secret of this."

(24) Others who have accumulated merit, and devoted themselves sincerely to religion, will experience various delightful pleasures and happiness and ease in full measure. But that class of neutral beings who have neither earned merit nor created bad karma will experience neither pleasure nor pain, but a sort of colourless stupidity of indifference. O nobly-born, whatever cometh in that manner — whatever delightful pleasures thou mayst experience — be not attracted by them; dote not [on them]: think, 'May the Guru and the Trinity be worshipped [with these merit-given delights]'. Abandon all dotings and hankerings.

(27) 'No man can be made happy by wealth. Shall we possess wealth, when we see thee? Shall we live, as long as thou rulest? Only that boon (which I have chosen) is to be chosen by me.'

(1) [This chapter is supplementary to chapter vi.] Is perfect happiness to be found on earth, or not? Are there those who can enjoy life, or not? If so, what do they do, what do they affect, what do they avoid, what do they rest in, accept, reject, like, and dislike? What the world esteems comprises wealth, rank, old age, and goodness of heart. What it enjoys comprises comfort, rich food, fine clothes, beauty, and music. What it does not esteem comprises poverty, want of position, early death, and evil behaviour. What it does not enjoy comprises lack of comfort for the body, lack of rich food for the palate, lack of fine clothes for the back, lack of beauty for the eye, and lack of music for the ear. If men do not get these, they are greatly miserable. Yet from the point of view of our physical frame, this is folly. Wealthy people who toil and moil, putting together more money than they can possibly use,—from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this going beyond the mark? Officials of rank who turn night into day in their endeavours to compass the best ends;—from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this a divergence? Man is born to sorrow, and what misery is theirs whose old age with dulled faculties only means prolonged sorrow! From the point of view of our physical frame, this is going far astray. Patriots are in the world's opinion admittedly good. Yet their goodness does not enable them to enjoy life;

(15) But suppose two wise men, one of them possessing all that is supposed to be naturally welcome, while the other meets only with the very reverse: do we assert that they have an equal happiness?

We do, if they are equally wise.

What though the one be favoured in body and in all else that does not help towards wisdom, still less towards virtue, towards the vision of the noblest, towards being the highest, what does all that amount to? The man commanding all such practical advantages cannot flatter himself that he is more truly happy than the man without them: the utmost profusion of such boons would not help even to make a flute-player.

We discuss the happy man after our own feebleness; we count alarming and grave what his felicity takes lightly: he would be neither wise nor in the state of happiness if he had not quitted all trifling with such things and become as it were another being, having confidence in his own nature, faith that evil can never touch him. In such a spirit he can be fearless through and through; where there is dread, there is not perfect virtue; the man is some sort of a half-thing.

As for any involuntary fear rising in him and taking the judgement by surprise, while his thoughts perhaps are elsewhere, the Sage will attack it and drive it out; he will, so to speak, calm the refractory child within him, whether by reason or by menace, but without passion, as an infant might feel itself rebuked by a glance of severity.

This does not make the Sage unfriendly or harsh: it is to himself and in his own great concern that he is the Sage: giving freely to his intimates of all he has to give, he will be the best of friends by his very union with the Intellectual-Principle.

(5) Virtuous Ones, if you want to realize the Buddha body in order to get rid of all the illnesses of a living being, you should set your minds on the quest of supreme enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-sambodhi).”

(2) This brief estate, which once gotten is a means to all the aims of mankind, is exceeding hard to win; if one use it not for wholesome reflection, how shall it ever come again to his lot? As in the night, amidst the gross darkness of the clouds, the lightning shews for an instant its radiance, so by the grace of the Enlightened it may hap that the mind of man turn for an instant to holy works. Thus righteousness is feeble, and the power of evil is constant, mighty, and dire; by what righteousness could it be overcome, if there were not the Thought of Enlightenment? Pondering through many aeons, the Supreme Saints have found this blessing, whereby a swelling joy sweeps in sweetness down the boundless waters of mankind. They who would escape the hundreds of life's sorrows, who would end the anguish of living creatures, and who would taste hundreds of deep delights, must never surrender the Thought of Enlightenment. The wretch held in thrall by Life's minions is declared a son of the Blessed Ones straightway when the Thought of Enlightenment arises in him, and he becomes worshipful to the worlds of men and gods. This foul form that he has taken he makes into the priceless jewel of a Conqueror's form; oh, grasp firmly the Thought of Enlightenment, that exceedingly potent elixir! Ho, ye who are exiles in the marts of bodied being, grasp firmly the precious jewel of the Thought of Enlightenment, which the immeasurably wise sole Guides of the world's caravan have well assayed! Like the plantain- tree, all other righteousness fades away after its fruit is cast; but the tree of the Thought of Enlightenment bears everlasting fruit and fades not, but is ever fecund. Though he have wrought most grievous sins, a man by taking refuge therein escapes them straightway; as ignorant beings under the guardianship of a mighty man escape sore terrors, why seek they not their refuge in this?,..

(11) Yama said: 'Though thou hadst seen the fulfilment of all desires, the foundation of the world, the endless rewards of good deeds, the shore where there is no fear, that which is magnified by praise, the wide abode, the rest, yet being wise thou hast with firm resolve dismissed it all.'

(5) He who finds happiness within, delights within, and illumined within, that sage becoming Brahman attains absolute perfection.

(1) Self-conceit and assurance, which lead men to quit society, and be different from their fellows, to indulge in tall talk and abuse of others,—these are nothing more than personal over-estimation, the affectation of recluses and those who have done with the world and have closed their hearts to mundane influences. Preaching of charity and duty to one's neighbour, of loyalty and truth, of respect, of economy, and of humility,—this is but moral culture, affected by would-be pacificators and teachers of mankind, and by scholars at home or abroad. Preaching of meritorious services, of fame, of ceremonial between sovereign and minister, of due relationship between upper and lower classes,—this is mere government, affected by courtiers or patriots who strive to extend the boundaries of their own State and to swallow up the territory of others. Living in marshes or in wildernesses, and passing one's days in fishing—this is mere inaction, affected by wanderers who have turned their backs upon the world and have nothing better to do. Exhaling and inhaling, getting rid of the old and assimilating the new, stretching like a bear and craning like a bird,— —this is but valetudinarianism, affected by professors of hygiene and those who try to preserve the body to the age of P'êng Tsu. But in self-esteem without self-conceit, in moral culture without charity and duty to one's neighbour, in government without rank and fame, in retirement without solitude, in health without hygiene,—there we have oblivion absolute coupled with possession of all things; an infinite calm which becomes an object to be attained by all.

(7) It is well for a man to depart to the forest ere the four bearers carry him away amidst the laments of his folk. Free from commerce and hindrance, possessing naught but his body, he has no grief at the hour of death, for already he has died to the world; no neighbours are there to vex him or disturb his remembrance of the Enlightened and like thoughts. Then I will ever woo sweet Solitude, untroubled dayspring of bliss, stilling all unrest. Released from all other thoughts, with mind utterly set upon my own spirit, I will strive to concentre and control my spirit.

(12) The pleasure demanded for the life cannot be in the enjoyments of the licentious or in any gratifications of the body- there is no place for these, and they stifle happiness- nor in any violent emotions- what could so move the Sage?- it can be only such pleasure as there must be where Good is, pleasure that does not rise from movement and is not a thing of process, for all that is good is immediately present to the Sage and the Sage is present to himself: his pleasure, his contentment, stands, immovable.

Thus he is ever cheerful, the order of his life ever untroubled: his state is fixedly happy and nothing whatever of all that is known as evil can set it awry- given only that he is and remains a Sage.

If anyone seeks for some other kind of pleasure in the life of the Sage, it is not the life of the Sage he is looking for.

(6) Now if happiness did indeed require freedom from pain, sickness, misfortune, disaster, it would be utterly denied to anyone confronted by such trials: but if it lies in the fruition of the Authentic Good, why turn away from this Term and look to means, imagining that to be happy a man must need a variety of things none of which enter into happiness? If, in fact, felicity were made up by heaping together all that is at once desirable and necessary we must bid for these also. But if the Term must be one and not many; if in other words our quest is of a Term and not of Terms; that only can be elected which is ultimate and noblest, that which calls to the tenderest longings of the soul.

The quest and will of the Soul are not pointed directly towards freedom from this sphere: the reason which disciplines away our concern about this life has no fundamental quarrel with things of this order; it merely resents their interference; sometimes, even, it must seek them; essentially all the aspiration is not so much away from evil as towards the Soul's own highest and noblest: this attained, all is won and there is rest- and this is the veritably willed state of life.

There can be no such thing as "willing" the acquirement of necessaries, if Will is to be taken in its strict sense, and not misapplied to the mere recognition of need.

It is certain that we shrink from the unpleasant, and such shrinking is assuredly not what we should have willed; to have no occasion for any such shrinking would be much nearer to our taste; but the things we seek tell the story as soon as they are ours. For instance, health and freedom from pain; which of these has any great charm? As long as we possess them, we set no store upon them.

Anything which, present, has no charm and adds nothing to happiness, which when lacking is desired because of the presence of an annoying opposite, may reasonably be called a necessity but not a Good.

Such things can never make part of our final object: our Term must be such that though these pleasanter conditions be absent and their contraries present, it shall remain, still, intact.