INDIFFERENCE OR INSOUCIANCE OF MANKI TO WORLDLINESS.
Argument:—Manki’s relation of the miseries of his life and of
this world, together with the evils attendant on Human body and
its senses and understanding.
Vasishtha said:—Being thus accosted by me, Manki fell at my feet (in
salutation); and then shedding the tears of joy from both his eyes,
spoke to me on our way, with due respect (to my rank).
2. Manki said:—O venerable sir, I have been long travelling in all the
ten sides of the earth; but I have never met a holy man like yourself,
who could remove the doubts arising in my mind.
3. Sir, I have gained today the knowledge which is the chief good of the
body of a Bráhmana, whose sacred person is more venerable and far more
superior in birth and dignity, than the bodies of all other beings in
heaven and on earth; but sir am sorry at heart, at seeing the evils of
this nether world.
4. Repeated births and deaths, and the continued rotations of pleasure
and pain, are all to be accounted as painful, on account of their
terminating in pain. (Pain is pain, and pleasure too ends in pain).
5. And because pleasure leads to greater pain (at its want), it is
better, O sage, to continue in one’s pain (which becomes a pleasure by
long habit). The sequence of fleeting pleasure being but lasting pain,
it is to be accounted as such even as long as it lasts.
6. O friend! all pleasures are as painful to me, as my pains have become
pleasurable at this advanced age of mine; when my teeth and the hairs of
my body, are falling off with the decay and wearing out of my internal
parts also.
7. My mind is continually aspiring to higher stations in life, and is
not persevering in its holy course; and the germ of my salvation, is
choked by the thorns and thistles of my evil and worldly desires.
8. My mind is situated amidst its passions and affections, within the
covert of my body, as the banian tree stands amidst its falling leaves
in the interior of a rustic village; and the desires are flying like
hungry vultures all over its body, in search of their abominable
sustenance.
9. My wicked and crooked thoughts are as the brambles of creeping and
thorny plants, and my life is a weary and dreary maze, as a dark and
dismal night (where and when we are blind-folded to descry our right
way).
10. The world with all its people, being parched and dried up like
withered plants, without the moisture of true knowledge, and decaying
day by day with incessant cares, is fast advancing towards its
dissolution, without being destroyed all at once.
11. All our present acts are drowned in those of our past lives, and
like withered trees bear no flower or fruit in our present life; and
actions done with desire, terminate with the gain of their transitory
objects. (Therefore no action nor meritorious deeds of religion, can
ever tend to our salvation. (Which is had by our faith alone)).
12. Our lives are wasted in our attachment to family and dependants, and
never employed to lead our souls across the ocean of the world; the
desire of earthly enjoyments are decaying day by day, and a dreadful
eternity awaits before us.
13. Our prosperity and possessions, whether they are more or less, are
as noxious to our souls, as the thorny and poisonous plants growing in
the hollow caves of earth; again they are attended with thoughts and
cares causing fever heat in the soul, and emaciating the body.
14. Fortune makes the brave and fortunate people, fall sometimes in the
hands of foes; as the man ardent with the desire of gems in his mind, is
tempted to catch the gemming serpents, lying in dark caves (and lose his
life in attempting to seize the treasure).
15. I being entirely inclined or given up to the objects of sense, am
abandoned by the wise (who hate to touch the vile); and my mind which is
polluted by worldly desires, and is all hollow within, is shunned by
them as a dead sea with its troubled and turbid waters.
16. My mind is turning also about false vanities, as the rheumatic pains
all about the body.
17. And I am also even with my innumerable deaths hunting after desired
vacuity for sorrow, though my mind is purged from the dross of ignorance
by reading sástra and associating good men; as the moon and stars
which with its power of removing darkness, stand good in vacuity.
18. There is no end of the dark night of my ignorance, when the gloomy
spectre of my egoism is playing its part; and I have not the knowledge,
which like a lion may destroy the furious elephant of my ignorance, and
burn down as fire the straws of my actions.
19. The dark night of my earthly desire or cupidity is not yet over, and
the sun of my disgust of the world is not risen as yet; I still believe
the unreal as real, and mind is roving about as an elephant.
20. My senses have been continually tempting me, and I know not what
will be the end of these temptations, which prevent even the wise
people, from observing precepts of the sástras.
21. This want of sight or disregard of the sástras, leads to our
blindness by kindling our desires, and by blinding our understanding;—
22. Therefore tell me sir, what am I to do in this difficulty, and what
is that may conduce to my chief good, that I am asking thee to
relate.
23. It is said that, the mist of our ignorance flies like the clouds, at
the sight of wise men and purification of our desires; now sir, verify
the truth of this saying of wise men, by your enlightening my
understanding, and giving peace to my mind.