Lecture 5, Lesson 3

Many are not attached to something in this world, they are not attached to it among these (householders). He is a wise man who has heard and understood the word of the learned ones. Without partiality the law has been declared by the noble ones. As I have destroyed here^[1] the connection with the world, so is the connection elsewhere difficult to destroy. Therefore I say: One should not abandon firmness. (1) Some who early exert themselves, do not afterwards slide back; some who early exert themselves, afterwards slide back; those who do not early exert themselves, (can of course) not slide back. That man also is of this description^[2], who knowing the world (as worthless nevertheless) follows its ways. ‘Knowing this, it has been declared by the sage.’ Here the follower of the commandment, the wise, the passionless, he who exerts himself before morning and after evening^[3], always contemplating virtue^[4] and hearing (the merit of it) will become free from love and delusion. ‘Fight with this (your body)! why should you fight with anything else?’ Difficult to attain is this (human body) which is worth the fight. For the clever ones have praised the discernment of wisdom; the fool who falls from it, is liable to birth, &c. (2) In this (religion of the Jainas the cause of the fool’s fall) has been declared (to depend) on colour^[5] and killing. But a sage who walks the beaten track (to liberation), regards the world in a different way. ‘Knowing thus (the nature of) acts in all regards, he does not kill,’ he controls himself, he is not overbearing. (3)

Comprehending that pleasure (and pain) are individual, advising kindness, he will not engage in any work in the whole world: keeping before him the one (great aim, liberation), and not turning aside, ‘living humbly, unattached to any creature.’ The rich (in control) who with a mind endowed with all penetration (recognises) that a bad deed should not be done, will not go after it. What you acknowledge as righteousness, that you acknowledge as sagedom (mauna); what you acknowledge as sagedom, that you acknowledge as righteousness. It is inconsistent with weak, sinning, sensual, ill-conducted house-inhabiting men. (4) ‘A sage, acquiring sagedom, should subdue his body.’ ‘The heroes who look at everything with indifference, use mean and rough (food, &c.)’ Such a man is said to have crossed the flood (of life), to be a sage, to have passed over (the saṃsāra), to be liberated, to have ceased (from acts). Thus I say. (5)