rief bring on bodily agony. And as water quencheth fire, so doth
true knowledge allay mental disquietude. And the mind attaining ease,
the body findeth ease also. It seemeth that affection is the root of all
mental sorrow. It is affection that maketh every creature miserable and
bringeth on every kind of woe. Verily affection is the root of all
misery and of all fear, of joy and grief of every kind of pain. From
affection spring all purposes, and it is from affection that spring the
love of worldly goods! Both of these (latter) are sources of evil,
though the first (our purposes) is worse than the second. And as (a
small portion of) fire thrust into the hollow of a tree consumeth the
tree itself to its roots, even so affection, ever so little, destroyeth
both virtue and profit. He cannot be regarded to have renounced the
world who hath merely withdrawn from worldly possessions. He, however,
who though in actual contact with the world regardeth its faults, may be
said to have truly renounced the world. Freed from every evil passion,
soul dependent on nothing with such a one hath truly renounced the
world. Therefore, should no one seek to place his affections on either
friends or the wealth he hath earned. And so should affection for one's
own person be extinguished by knowledge. Like the lotus-leaf that is
never drenched by water, the souls of men capable of distinguishing
between the ephemeral and the everlasting, of men devoted to the pursuit
of the eternal, conversant with the scriptures and purified by
knowledge, can never be moved by affection. The man that is influenced
by affection is tortured by desire; and from the desire that springeth
up in his heart his thirst for worldly possessions increaseth. Verily,
this thirst is sinful and is regarded as the source of all anxieties. It
is this terrible thirst, fraught with sin that leaneth unto unrighteous
acts. Those find happiness that can renounce this thirst, which can
never be renounced by the wicked, which decayeth not with the decay of
the body, and which is truly a fatal disease! It hath neither beginning
nor end. Dwelling within the heart, it destroyeth creatures, like a fire
of incorporeal origin. And as a faggot of wood is consumed by the fire
that is fed by itself, even so doth a person of impure soul find
destruction from the covetousness born of his heart. And as creatures
endued with life have ever a dread of death, so men of wealth are in
constant apprehen