y they
lament and are lamented. Happiness and misery, plenty and want, gain and
loss, life and death, are shared by all in due order. Therefore, he that
is self-controlled should neither exult in joy nor repine in sorrow. The
six senses are always restless. Through the most predominant one amongst
them one's understanding escapeth in proportion to the strength it
assumes, like water from a pot through its holes.'

"Dhritarashtra said, 'King Yudhishthira who is like a flame of fire, has
been deceived by me. He will surely exterminate in battle all my wicked
sons. Everything, therefore, seems to me to be fraught with danger, and
my mind is full of anxiety. O thou of great intelligence, tell me such
words as may dispel my anxiety.'

"Vidura said, 'O sinless one, in nothing else than knowledge and
asceticism, in nothing else than restraining the senses, in nothing else
than complete abandonment of avarice, do I see thy good. Fear is
dispelled by self-knowledge; by asceticism one winneth what is great and
valuable; by waiting upon superiors learning is acquired; and peace is
gained by self-restraint. They that desire salvation without having
acquired the merit attainable by gifts, or that which is attainable by
practising the ritual of the Vedas, do not sojourn through life, freed
from anger and aversion. The happiness that may be derived from a
judicious course of study, from a battle fought virtuously, from ascetic
austerities performed rigidly, always increaseth at the end. They that
are no longer in peace with their relatives, obtain no sleep even if they
have recourse to well-made beds; nor do they, O king, derive any pleasure
from women, or the laudatory hymns of bards and eulogists. Such
persons can never practise virtue. Happiness can never be theirs, in this
world. Honours can never be theirs, and peace hath no charm for them.
Counsels that are for their benefit please them not. They never acquire
what they have not, nor succeed in retaining what they have. O king,
there is no other end for such men save destruction. As milk is possible
in kine, asceticism in Brahmanas, and inconstancy in women, so fear is
possible from relatives. Numerous thin threads of equal length, collected
together, are competent to bear, from the strength of numbers, the
constant rolling of the shuttle-cock over them. The case is even so with
relatives that are good. O bull of the Bharata race, separated from one
another, burning brands prod