21. 'Those who abandoning wealth, kindred, and worldly objects, undertake vows for the sake of heaven,—they, when parted, only wish to go to a still greater wood of their own again[1].
22. 'He who by all these bodily toils which are called penances, seeks a sphere of action for the sake of desire,—not examining the inherent evils of mundane existence, he only seeks pain by pain.
23. 'There is ever to living creatures fear from death, and they with all their efforts seek to be born again; where there is action, there must inevitably be death,—he is always drowned therein, just because he is afraid.
24. 'Some undergo misery for the sake of this world, others meet toil for the sake of heaven; all living beings, wretched through hope and always missing their aim, fall certainly for the sake of happiness into misery.
25. 'It is not the effort itself which I blame,—which flinging aside the base pursues a high path of its own; but the wise, by all this common toil, ought to attain that state in which nothing needs ever to be done again.
26. 'If the mortification of the body here is religion, then the body's happiness is only irreligion; but by religion a man obtains happiness in the next world, therefore religion here bears irreligion as its fruit.
27. 'Since it is only by the minds authority that the body either acts or ceases to act, therefore to control the thought is alone befitting,—without the thought the body is like a log.
- ↑ Their desired heaven will only be a fresh penance-grove.
