soul and
body. Nature always walks ahead; hence, food and drink will somehow be
accomplished. I shall not think of those pairs of opposites that stand in
the way of such a life. If pure food in even a small measure be not
obtainable in the first house (to which I may go), I shalt get it by
going to other houses. If I fail to procure it by even such a round, I
shall proceed to seven houses in succession and fill my craving. When the
smoke of houses will cease, their hearth-fires having been extinguished,
when husking-rods will be kept aside, and all the inmates will have taken
their food, when mendicants and guests will cease to wander, I shall
select a moment for my round of mendicancy and solicit alms at two,
three, or five houses at the most. I shall wander over the earth, after
breaking the bonds of desire. Preserving equability in success and
failure, I shall earn great ascetic merit. I shall behave neither like
one that is fond of life nor like one that is about to die. I shall not
manifest any liking for life or dislike for death. If one strikes off one
arm of mine and another smears the other arm with sandal-paste, I shall
not wish evil to the one or good to the other. Discarding all those acts
conducive to prosperity that one can do in life, the only acts I shall
perform will be to open and shut my eyes and take as much food and drink
as will barely keep up life. Without ever being attached to action, and
always restraining the functions of the senses, I shall give up all
desires and purify the soul of all impurities. Freed from all attachments
and tearing off all bonds and ties, I shall live free as the wind. Living
in such freedom from affections, everlasting contentment will be mine.
Through desire, I have, from ignorance, committed great sins. A certain
class of men, doing both auspicious and inauspicious acts here, maintain
their wives, children, and kinsmen, all bound to them in relations of
cause and effect.[12] When the period of their life runs out, casting off
their weakened bodies, they take upon themselves all the effects of their
sinful acts, for none but the actor is burdened with the consequences of
his acts.[13] Even thus, endued with actions, creatures come into this
wheel of life that is continually turning like the wheel of a car, and
even thus, coming thither, they meet with their fellow-creatures. He,
however, who abandons the worldly course of life, which is really a
fleeting illusion althoug