n engaged in Yoga, becomes united with
primal Prakriti.[1569] Men whose minds become bound by diverse chains of
affection, and who are engulfed in ignorance, meet with destruction like
houses of sand in water.[1570] That embodied creature who regards his
body as only a house and purity (both external and internal) as its
sacred water, and who walks along the path of the understanding, succeeds
in attaining to happiness both here and hereafter.[1571] The Diverse are
productive of misery; while the Few are productive of happiness. The
Diverse are the fruits represented by the not-Soul. Renunciation (which
is identical with Few) is productive of the soul's benefit.[1572] One's
friends who spring up from one's determination, and one's kinsmen whose
attachment is due to (selfish) reasons, one's spouses and sons and
servants, only devour one's wealth. Neither the mother, nor the father,
can confer the slightest benefit upon one in the next world. Gifts
constitute the diet upon which one can subsist. Indeed, one must have to
enjoy the fruits of one's own acts.[1573] The mother, the son, the sire,
the brother, the wife, and friends, are like lines traced with gold by
the side of gold itself.[1574] All acts, good and bad, done in past lives
come to the doer. Knowing that everything one enjoys or endures at
present is the result of the acts of past lives, the soul urges the
understanding on different directions (so that it may act in such a way
as to avoid all unpleasant fruits). Relying on earnest endeavour, and
equipped with proper aids, he who sets himself to accomplish his tasks
never meets with failure. As the rays of light never abandon the Sun,
even so prosperity never abandons one who is endued with undoubting
faith. That act which a man of stainless soul does with faith and
earnestness, with the aid of proper means, without pride, and with
intelligence, becomes never lost. A creature obtains from the very time
of his abode in the mother's womb all his own acts good and bad that were
achieved by him in his past lives. Death, which is irresistible, aided by
Time which brings about the destruction of life, leads all creatures to
their end like wind scattering the dust of sawed timber.[1575] Through
acts good and bad performed by himself in his past lives, man obtains
gold and animals and spouses, and children, and honour of birth, and
possessions of value, and his entire affluence.'"

"'Bhishma continued, "Thus addressed con