"When old and grey, when strength decays,
By foes when crushed, in evil days,
From fortune's heights when downward hurled--
Yes, then let men renounce the world;
But not in days of youth and health,
When crowned with glory, blest with wealth.
Those scripture texts which praise as best
A life ascetic, lone, unblest,
Dragged sadly on in gloomy woods,
And dreary, doleful solitudes,
Are fictions hatched in squalid schools
By needy unbelieving fools,
Which look like truth, but proved, are found
To rest on no substantial ground.

"To savage beasts it is not given
By forest life to merit heaven;
Yet this same life, by hermits led,
Their future bliss ensures, 'tis said!

"When men no pleasure feel, nor pain,
A state of stupid torpor gain.
They then have reached perfection, rise
To heaven, so say the would-be wise.
But should not trees,--if this be true,--
And boulders, gain perfection too?
For they are calm and torpid, feel
Nor pain nor pleasure, woe nor weal;
They dread no want, they seek no ease,
Like self-tormenting devotees.

"Abandon, then, thy vain design;
By kingly virtues seek to shine.
See how by acts all mortals strive
Their ends to gain, through effort thrive,
Inaction ne'er perfection brings;
From strenuous deeds alone it springs."

Translation by J. Muir. For more, readers should look in the Metrical Translation from Sanskrit writers.

Footnotes

^63:* Universal Soul.

^63:** Third Age in Brahma. (see pg. 80, 81 Great Masters of the Himalayas).

^108:* In India we have a Mother God, not a Father God. We address her Adakali (Divine Mother).

THE GREAT EGOIST--BALI

The Master Vashisht continued:

"The illumination of wisdom came like the dawn to the heart of Pavana, who had been initiated by his brother, the Muni Punya. Both of these brothers having attained Atmic wisdom, lived in the forest. For many years they enjoyed the quiet pleasures of solitude and at last reached the calm of bodiless bliss [**]--like lights which have consumed both wick and oil. For this is the fate of all beings.

"If one, in his many incarnations is related to all, where then, is the necessity of love or hate? The most reasonable course is to forego extreme and excessive desires, not to enlarge upon them. If desire is allowed to flourish lit becomes food for contemplation. When desire passes, so does the structure of thought built about it, collapse and perish. This is indeed. truth.