(13) For a foolish man usually puts on folly like a robe, and like a garment of sorrow, he puts on shame. And he crowns himself with ignorance, and takes his seat upon a throne of nescience. For while he is without reason, he leads only himself astray, for he is guided by ignorance. And he goes the ways of the desire of every passion. He swims in the desires of life and has sunk. To be sure, he thinks that he finds profit when he does all the things which are without profit. The wretched man who goes through all these things will die, because he does not have the mind, the helmsman. But he is like a ship which the wind tosses to and fro, and like a loose horse which has no rider. For this (man) needed the rider, which is reason. For the wretched one went astray because he did not want advice. He was thrown to and fro by these three misfortunes: he acquired death as a father, ignorance as a mother, and evil counsels - he acquired them as friends and brothers. Therefore, foolish one, you should mourn for yourself.

(3) The man who does not follow the cycle thus set revolving is a sinner rejoicing in sense-pleasures and he lives in vain.

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

(32) If [about] to be born as a male, the feeling of itself being a male dawneth upon the Knower, and a feeling of intense hatred towards the father and of jealousy and attraction towards the mother is begotten. If [about] to be born as a female, the feeling of itself being a female dawneth upon the Knower, and a feeling of intense hatred towards the mother and of intense attraction and fondness towards the father is begotten. Through this secondary cause — [when] entering upon the path of ether, just at the moment when the sperm and the ovum are about to unite — the Knower experienceth the bliss of the simultaneously-born state, during which state it fainteth away into unconsciousness. [Afterwards] it findeth itself encased in oval form, in the embryonic state, and upon emerging from the womb and opening its eyes it may find itself transformed into a young dog. Formerly it had been a human being, but now if it have become a dog it findeth itself undergoing sufferings in a dog's kennel; or [perhaps] as a young pig in a pigsty, or as an ant in an ant-hill, or as an insect, or a grub in a hole, or as a calf, or a kid, or a lamb, from which shape there is no [immediate] returning. Dumbness, stupidity, and miserable intellectual obscurity are suffered, and a variety of sufferings experienced. In like manner, one may wander into hell, or into the world of unhappy ghosts, or throughout the Six Lokas, and endure inconceivable miseries.

(6) The man who has fallen away from yoga goes to the worlds of the righteous. Having lived there for unnumbered years, he is reborn in the home of the pure and the prosperous.

(2) He who forms desires in his mind, is born again through his desires here and there. But to him whose desires are fulfilled and who is conscious of the true Self (within himself) all desires vanish, even here on earth.

(8) 'A Brâhmana that dwells in the house of a foolish man without receiving food to eat, destroys his hopes and expectations, his possessions, his righteousness, his sacred and his good deeds, and all his sons and cattle.'

(4) 'Having had enjoyment in this state of waking, having traveled around and seen good and evil, he hastens again. according to the entrance and place of origin, back to dreaming sleep. 1 8. As a great fish goes along both banks of a river, both the hither and the further, just so this person goes along both these conditions, the condition of sleeping and the condition of waking. The soul in deep, dreamless sleep

(2) Just as the man in this body passes through the various stages of boyhood, youth, and old age, like so, he passes into another body after death. The wise know it and are not deluded.

(7) 'And he who desires the world of food and drink, by his mere will food and drink come to him, and having obtained the world of food and drink, he is happy.

(6) 'Having become mist, he becomes a cloud, having become a cloud, he rains down. Then he is born as rice and corn, herbs and trees, sesamum. and beans. From thence the escape is beset with most difficulties. For whoever the persons may be that eat the food, and beget offspring, he henceforth becomes like unto them.

(43) For every man is free, and is as a god to himself; in this life man may change and alter himself either into wrath or into light. Such clothes or garments as a man puts on, transfigure him. And what manner of body soever man soweth into the earth, such a body also grows up from it, though in another form, clarity and brightness, yet all according to the quality of the seed.

(4) When he comes to weakness— whether he come to weakness through old age or through disease—this person frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, or a fig, or a berry releases itself from its bond; and he hastens again, according to the entrance and place of origin, back to life.

(1) A king once saw a man, who, though clad in rags was working in the way of self-perfection. He called him and asked: 'Who is the better off, you or I?' The man said: 'O ignorant one, beat your breast and hold your tongue. Who praises himself does not understand the meaning of words; but this I must say, there can be no doubt that a man such as I is a thousand times better off than a man such as you. With not even the taste of religion, your dog of desire has reduced you to the status of an ass. He is your master and rides you on a bridle pulling your head this way and that. You do all that he commands. You are a non-entity, and fit for nothing, whereas I who know the secrets of the heart have made of this dog, my ass to ride upon. Your dog rules you, but if you will make of it an ass you are then as I, and a hundred times better off than your fellows.'

(2) When a man eats, drinks, and enjoys pleasures, he does it with the Upasadas (the sacrificial days on which the sacrificer is allowed to partake of food).

(2) Just as a man cast off his worn-out clothes and puts on new ones so also the Self throws away its worn-out bodies and takes other fresh bodies.

(20) Now if any one should in drunkenness or fulness fall upon them, and plunge himself into perdition, let him bear his own blame; he has need of a light in his heart, that his understanding and mind may be well governed.

(1) Now he who is patient will seek for strength, for in strength lies Enlightenment. Without strength there is no righteous work, as without the wind there is no motion. And what is strength? Vigour hi well-doing. What is its contrary called? Faintness, clinging to base things, despair, self-contempt. From inaction, delight in pleasure, slumber, and eagerness for repose springs a spirit that feels no horror at the miseries of life, and from this arises faintness. Pursued by the Passions, those fishers, thou hast come into the net of Birth, and knowest thou not that this selfsame day thou hast fallen into the jaws of Death? Seest thou not thy comrades smitten down one after the other? and withal thou fallest into slumber like a bullock in the butcher's hands. Watched by the Death-god, thy ways hemmed in on every side, how canst thou find delight in food, how canst thou sleep and love? Wait a little while, until Death shall have gathered his instruments, and he will come swiftly upon thee; then it will be an ill time for thee to cast off thy faintness, and what wilt thou do? " This work untouched, this begun, this standing half-done — and lo! Death has suddenly fallen upon me! Alas, I am undone! " Such will be thy thoughts, whilst thou lookest upon thy despairing kinsmen with their eyes swollen and red with tears in the passion of their grief, and upon the faces of the Death-god's messengers, whilst thou liest racked by the memory of thy sins, hearing the noises of hell, altogether overwhelmed— and oh, what wilt thou do?

As an instance of false and insincere repentance, a story is next told, which is also found in the fifth chapter of the Anwar i Suhaili. A lion had been wounded in fight with a male elephant, and was unable to hunt game for himself. In this strait he called a fox who was wont to attend upon him, and to live on the meat that was left from his repasts, just as disciples attending on a saint subsist on the heavenly food dropping from his lips. He called this fox, and bade him go and entice some animal to come near his lair, so that he might kill it and make a meal of it. The fox went and searched the neighborhood, and at last found a lean and hungry ass who was grazing in a stony place where there was little or no grass. The fox, after making due salutations, condoled with the ass on his unfortunate condition; but the ass replied that it was his divinely appointed lot, and that it would be impious to complain of the dispensations of Providence. He also instanced the case of the ass of a water-carrier, which, after having starved and worked hard in its master's service, by chance found admittance to the king's stables, where it was struck by the sleek appearance of the horses. But one day the horses were taken out to battle, and returned in a most miserable plight, some grievously wounded, and others dying. After seeing this sight it determined that its own hard life was preferable, and returned to its master. The fox replied that the ass was wrong in carrying passive resignation to such an extent as to refuse to try to better his condition when the opportunity of doing so presented itself, because God says, "Go in quest of the bounties of God." He added, if the ass would come with him, he would take him to a delightful meadow, where he would never lack plenty of grass all the year round. The ass rejoined that the command to strive for sustenance was only issued on account of the weakness of man's faith. The fox replied that this exalted faith was only vouchsafed to a few great saints, because the Prophet describes contentment as a treasure, and treasure is not found by everyone. The ass rejoined that the fox was perverting the Scripture, as no pious man who trusted in God was ever forsaken. In illustration of this he told an anecdote of a devotee who determined to put the matter to the test, and went out into the desert, trusting only to God to supply his wants, and resolved to seek no aid of man, and not to exert himself in any way to gain food. He lay down on a stone and went to sleep; and God sent a caravan of travelers that way, who found him, and forced him to take food in spite of himself. The fox again pressed the ass to try to better his condition, saying that God had given men hands to use and not to do anything with. The ass answered that he knew of no occupation and exertion better than trust in God, as worldly occupations often lead to ruin, according to the text, "Throw not yourselves with your own hands into ruin." But though the ass repeated all these excellent precepts, yet it was only so much cant on his part, because he was not firmly rooted in. the faith. He had all the time a carnal hankering after the pleasant grazing-ground the fox told him of, and the objections he made were only a parrot-like repetition of precepts heard, but not thoroughly understood and taken to heart. To illustrate the worthless nature of mere imitated religion and profession divorced from practice, a story is told of an infamous fellow who used to carry a dagger to protect as he said, his honor, though his every action showed that he had neither honor to protect nor manliness to protect it. The ass, though like Abraham, he had broken his idols, had not a sufficiently rooted faith to leap, like Abraham, into the fire, and thus prove his faith. [Here the poet apologizes for the trivial illustrations he uses by citing the text, "Verily God is not ashamed to set forth as well the instance of a gnat as of any nobler object" 3.] Finally the ass yielded to the fox's enticement, and accompanied him to the lion's lair. The lion, being famished with hunger, sprang upon him the moment he appeared. Being, however, weak with sickness and fasting, he missed his aim, and the ass escaped with a slight wound. Then the fox blamed the lion for his precipitation, and the lion, after excusing himself as best he could, persuaded the fox to try to allure the ass a second time into his lair. The fox consented to try, observing that experience would probably have been thrown away on an ass, and his vows of repentance forgotten. Those who lapse from repentance, in forgetfulness of their former experience, may be compared to the Jews changed into apes and swine by 'Isa. The fox was received by the ass with many reproaches for having deceived him; but he at last managed to persuade the ass that what he had seen was not a real lion, but only a harmless talisman; and the silly ass allowed himself to be again deluded, and forgot his vows of repentance, and again followed the fox to the lion's lair, where he speedily met his doom. Men who make professions of holiness merely from blind imitation of others are detected and confuted by the opposition between their words and their deeds.

(42) Timaeus: he shall be changed every time, according to the nature of his wickedness, into some bestial form after the similitude of his own nature; nor in his changings shall he cease from woes until he yields himself to the revolution of the Same and Similar that is within him, and dominating by force of reason that burdensome mass which afterwards adhered to him of fire and water