id to behold
properly. Such persons have never to shed tears, (at anything that may
happen). When any such calamity comes, productive of either physical or
mental grief, as is incapable of being warded off by even one's best
efforts, one should cease to reflect on it with sorrow. This is the
medicine for sorrow, viz., not to think of it. By thinking of it, one can
never dispel it; on the other hand, by thinking upon sorrow, one only
enhances it. Mental griefs should be killed by wisdom; while physical
grief should be dispelled by medicines. This is the power of knowledge.
One should not, in such matters, behave like men of little
understandings. Youth, beauty, life, stored wealth, health, association
with those that are loved,--these all are exceedingly transitory. One
possessed of wisdom should never covet them. One should not lament
individually for a sorrowful occurrence that concerns an entire
community. Instead of indulgence in it when grief comes, one should seek
to avert it and apply a remedy as soon as one sees the opportunity for
doing it. There is no doubt that in this life the measure of misery is
much greater than that of happiness. There is no doubt in this that all
men show attachment for objects of the senses and that death is regarded
as disagreeable. That man who casts off both joy and sorrow, is said to
attain to Brahma. When such a man departs from this world, men of wisdom
never indulge in any sorrow on his account. In spending wealth there is
pain. In protecting it there is pain. In acquiring it there is pain.
Hence, when one's wealth meets with destruction, one should not indulge
in any sorrow for it. Men of little understanding, attaining to different
grades of wealth, fail to win contentment and at last perish in misery.
Men of wisdom, however, are always contented. All combinations are
destined to end in dissolution. All things that are high are destined to
fall down and become low. Union is sure to end in disunion and life is
certain to end in death. Thirst is unquenchable. Contentment is the
highest happiness. Hence, persons of wisdom regard contentment to be the
most precious wealth. One's allotted period of life is running
continually. It stops not in its course for even a single moment. When
one's body itself is not durable, what other thing is there (in this
world) that one should reckon as durable? Those persons who, reflecting
on the nature of all creatures and concluding that it is beyond