"There is a liquor in the world, my son, that men call wine,
Fragrant, delicious, honey-sweet, and cheap, of flavour fine:
This, Narada, for holy men is poison, say the wise.

"And women in the world can set fools' wits a whirling round,
They catch young hearts, as hurricanes catch cotton from the ground:
The precipice I mean is this before the good man lies.

"High honours shown by other men, respect and fame and gain,
This is the mud, O Narada, which holy men may stain.

"Great monarchs with their retinue have in that world dwelling,
And they are great, O Narada, and each a mighty king:

[223] "Before the feet of sovereign lords and monarchs walk not thou,
For, Narada, these are the snakes of whom I spake just now.

"The house thou comest to for food, when men sit down to meat,
If thou see good within that house, there take thy fill, and eat.

"When by another entertained with food or drink, this do:
Eat not too much, nor drink too much, and fleshly lusts eschew.

"From gossip, drink, lewd company, and shops of goldsmith's ware,
Keep thou afar as those who by the uneven pathway fare."

As his father went on talking and talking, the lad came to his senses, and said, "Enough of the world for me, dear father!" [224] Then his father instructed him how to develop kindliness and other good feelings. The son followed his father's instruction, and ere long caused the ecstasy of mystic meditation to spring up within him. And both of them, father and son, without a break in the trance, were born again in the world of Brahma.

When the Master had ended this discourse, he identified the Birth: "At that time this coarse girl was the young woman, the discontented Brother was the ascetic's son, and I was the father."

Footnotes

^137:1 I.e. it shall master me too one day.

^138:1 Cf. No. 435, Vol. iii.

^138:2 Literally "the Kingdom."