DESCRIPTION OF THE TRIPLE CONDUCT OF MEN.
Argument.--Siva's interpretations of the three duties of action,
Enjoyment and charity to his suppliant Bhringi.
Vasishtha said:--Take my advise, Ráma, and strive to be an example or
the greatest man in thy deeds, enjoyments, and bounty; and rely in thy
unshaken endurance, by bidding defiance to all thy cares and fears.
(_i.e._ Remain as a rock against all accidents of life).
2. Ráma asked:--Tell me sir, what is the deed that makes the greatest
actor, and what is that thing which constitutes the highest enjoyments;
tell me also what is the great bounty, which you advise me to practice.
3. These three virtues were explained long before by the God Siva, who
holds the semi-circular disc of the crescent moon on his forehead; to
the lord of the Bhringis, who was thereby released from all disease
and disquiet. (Were the fair Bhringis the Fringis or Franks of modern
times? If not, then who were this class of demigods?).
4. The God who has the horn of the moon as a crown on his head, used
to hold his residence of yore, on a northern peak of the north polar
mountain, together with all his family and attendants.
5. It happened that the mighty, but little knowing lord of the
Bhringis, asked him one day, with his folded palms, and his body lowly
bending down in suppliant mood before the godlike lord of Umá. (Umá
is the same in sound and sense with Ushá the dawn, appearing from the
eastern ridge of the northmost mountain).
6. Bhringi said:--Deign to explain to me, my lord, what I ask thee to
tell for my knowledge; for thou knowest all things, and art the God of
Gods.
7. Lord! I am overwhelmed in sorrow, to see the boisterous waves of
this deep and dark world in which we have been buffeting for ever,
without finding the calm and quiet harbour of truth.
8. Tell me, my lord, what is that certain truth and inward assurance,
whereon we may rely with confidence, and whereby we may find our rest
and repose in this our shattered mansion of this world.
9. The lord replied:--Place always your reliance in your unshaken
patience, and neither care nor fear for anything else, and ever strive
to be foremost in your action and passion and in your relinquishment of
everything (passion and relinquishment here are used in the senses of
passivity and liberality).
10. Bhringi rejoined:--Explain to me fully, my lord, what is meant by
being the greatest in action and passion; and what are we to understand
from the greatest liberality or abandonment of every thing here.
11. The lord replied:--He is said to be the greatest actor, who does
his deeds as they occur to him, whether of goodness or of evil, without
any fear or desire of fruition. (_i.e._ Who expects no reward of his
acts of goodness, nor fears for the retribution of some heinous deed,
which he could not avoid to do).
12. He who does his acts of goodness or otherwise, who gives vent to
his hatred and affection and feels both pleasure and pain, without
reference to any person or thing, and without the expectation of their
consequences, is said to be the greatest actor in the theatre of this
world.
13. He is said to act his part well, who does his business without
any ado or anxiety, and maintains his taciturnity and purity of heart
without any taint of egoism or envy.
14. He is said to act his part well, who does not trouble his mind
with the thoughts of actions, that are accounted as auspicious or
inauspicious, or deemed as righteous or unrighteous, according to
common opinion. (_i.e._ Best is the man that relies on his own probity,
and is not guided by public opinion).
15. He is said to perform well his part, who is not affected towards
any person or thing, but witnesses all objects as a mere witness; and
goes on doing his business, without his desiring or deep engagement in
it.
16. He is the best actor of his part, who is devoid of care and
delight, and continues in the same tone and tenor of his mind, and
retains the clearness of his understanding at all times, without
feeling any joy or sorrow at anything.
17. He does his duties best, who has the readiness of his wits at the
fittest time of action; and sits unconcerned with it at other times,
as a retired and silent sage or saint (_i.e._ discharge your business
promptly, but be no slave to service).
18. He who does his works with unconcern and without assuming to
himself the vanity of being the doer of it, is accounted as the best
actor, that acts his part with his body, but keeps his mind quite
unattached to it.
19. He is reckoned as the best actor, who is naturally quiet in his
disposition and never loses the evenness of his temper; who does good
to his friends and evil to his enemies; without taking them to his
heart.
20. He is the greatest actor, who looks at his birth, life and death,
and upon his rising and falling in the same light; and does not lose
the equanimity of his mind under any circumstance whatever.
21. Again he is said to enjoy himself and his life the best, who
neither envies anybody nor pines for any thing; but enjoys and
acquiesces to whatever is allotted to his lot, with cool composure and
submission of his mind.
22. He also is said to enjoy every thing well, who receives with his
hands what his mind does not perceive; and acts with his body without
being conscious of it and enjoys everything without taking it to his
heart.
23. He is said to enjoy himself best, who looks on at the conduct and
behaviour of mankind, as an unconcerned and indifferent spectator; and
looks upon every thing without craving anything for himself.
24. He whose mind is not moved with pleasure or pain, nor elated with
success and gain, nor dejected by his failure and loss; and who remains
firm in all his terrible tribulations, is the man who is said to be in
the perfect enjoyment of himself.
25. He is said to be in the best enjoyment of himself, who hails with
an equal eye of complaisance his decay and demise, his danger and
difficulty, his affluence and poverty, and looks on their returns and
revolutions, with an eye of delight and cheerfulness.
26. He is called the man of greatest gratification, who sustains all
the ups and downs of fortune with equal fortitude, as deep sea contains
its boisterous waves in its fathomless depth.
27. He is said to have the highest gratifications who is possest of
the virtues of contentment, equanimity and benevolence (lit. want of
malice); and which always accompany his person, as the cooling beams
cling to the disk of the moon.
28. He too is greatly gratified in himself, who tastes the sour and
sweet, the bitter and pungent with equal zest; and relishes a savoury
and an unsavoury dish with the same taste.
29. He who tastes the tasteful and juicy, as also the untasteful
and dry food with equal zest, and beholds the pleasant as well as
unpleasant things with equal delight, is the man that is ever gratified
in himself.
30. He to whom salt and sugar are both alike, and to whom both saline
as well as saccharine victuals are equally palatable; and who remains
unaltered both in his happy and adverse circumstances; is the man who
enjoys the best bliss of his life in this world.
31. He is in the enjoyment of his highest bliss, who makes no
distinction of one kind of his food from another; and who yearns for
nothing that he can hardly earn. (Happy is he, who does not itch beyond
his reach).
32. He enjoys his life best, who braves his misfortune with calmness,
and brooks his good fortune, his joyous days and better circumstances
with moderation and coolness.
33. He is said to have abandoned his all, who has given up the
thoughts of his life and death, of his pleasure and pain, and those of
his merits and demerits at once from his mind.
34. He who has abandoned all his desires and exertions, and forsaken
all his hopes and fears, and effaced all his determinations from the
tablet of his mind, is said to have relinquished every thing in this
world, and to have freed himself from all.
35. He who does not take to his mind the pains, which invade his body,
mind and the senses, is said to have cast away from himself, all the
troubles of his mortal state. (Because the mind only feels the bodily
and sensuous pains, and its unfeelingness of them is its exemption from
troubles).
36. He is accounted as the greatest giver (forsaker) of his all, who
gives up the cares of his body and birth (life); and has abandoned the
thoughts of acts, deemed to be proper or improper for himself. (These
are the social, civil, ceremonial and religious acts, which are binding
on worldly people).
37. He is said to have made his greatest sacrifice, who has sacrificed
his mind and all his mental functions and endeavours, before the shrine
of his self-abnegation.
38. He who has given up the sight of the visibles from his view, and
does not allow the sensibles to obtrude upon his senses, is said to
have renounced all and every thing from himself.
39. It was in this manner that the lord of gods Mahádeva, gave his
instructions to the lord of the Bhringis; and it is by your acting
according to these precepts, that you must, O Ráma! attain to the
perfection of your self-abnegation.
40. Meditate always on the everlasting and immaculate spirit, that is
without its beginning and end; which is wholly this entire immensity
and has no part nor partner, nor representative nor representation of
itself. By thinking in this way you become immaculate yourself, and
come to be extinct in the self-same Brahma, where there is all peace
and tranquillity.
41. Know one undecaying Brahma, as the soul and seed of all various
works or productions that are proceeded from him. It is his immensity
which spreads unopened throughout the whole existence; as it is the
endless sky which comprehends and manifests all things in itself.
42. It is not possible for anything at all, whether of positive or
potential existence, to subsist without and apart from this universal
essence of all, rely secure with this firm belief in your mind, and be
free from all fears in the world.
43. O most righteous Ráma, look always to the inner soul within
thyself, and perform all thy outward actions with the outer members of
thy body, by forsaking the sense of thy egoism and personality; and
being thereby freed from all care and sorrow, thou shalt attain to thy
supreme felicity.