"'Yudhishthira said, "Abstention from injury, the observance of the Vedic
ritual, meditation, subjugation of the senses, penances, and obedient
services rendered to the preceptors,--which amongst these is fraught with
the greatest merit with respect to a person?"
"'Vrihaspati said, "All these six are fraught with merit. They are
different doors of piety. I shall discourse upon them presently. Do thou
listen to them, O chief of the Bharatas! I shall tell thee what
constitutes the highest good of a human being. That man who practises the
religion of universal compassion achieves his highest good. That man who
keeps under control the three faults, viz., lust, wrath, and cupidity, by
throwing them upon all creatures (and practises the virtue of
compassion), attains to success[519]. He who, from motives of his own
happiness, slays other harmless creatures with the rod of chastisement,
never attains to happiness, in the next world. That man who regards all
creatures as his own self, and behaves towards them as towards his own
self, laying aside the rod of chastisement and completely subjugating his
wrath, succeeds in attaining to happiness. The very deities, who are
desirous of a fixed abode, become stupefied in ascertaining the track of
that person who constitutes himself the soul of all creatures and looks
upon them all as his own self, for such a person leaves no track
behind.[520] One should never do that to another which one regards as
injurious to one's own self. This, in brief, is the rule of
Righteousness. One by acting in a different way by yielding to desire,
becomes guilty of unrighteousness. In refusals and gifts, in happiness
and misery, in the agreeable, and the disagreeable, one should judge of
their effects by a reference to one's own self.[521] When one injures
another, the injured turns round and injures the injurer. Similarly, when
one cherishes another, that other cherishes the cherisher. One should
frame one's rule of conduct according to this. I have told thee what
Righteousness is even by this subtile way."'
"Vaisampayana continued, 'The preceptor of the deities, possessed of
great intelligence, having said this unto king Yudhishthira the just,
ascended upwards for proceeding to Heaven, before our eyes.'"