Sri Vasista

1. O Rāma, where is the need to grieve even if wife and children are lost?  Why lament for something of jugglery which flashes for a moment?

2. Who are these sons and such?  What are these things of a city in sky?  What are these praises and insults?  These are mere aspects of ignorance.  They are a series of joys and sorrows.

3. Wealth is attractive.  Wife etc are pleasing.  But who needs their increase?  What is the joy for one who is thirsty of a mirage increases?

4. If wealth and wife increase, the proper things is to be unhappy, not to be pleased.  Who can tolerate the deceipt of delusion?

5. What increases attachment and attraction in a fool, the same increase dispassion in a wise man.

6. Who feels happy when wealth and wife are gone?  It is they who have a divine perception.  Dispassion grows in such people.

7. And so, O Rāma, conduct yourself in this world like a philosopher (who knows the truth).  Be indifferent to loss and enjoy what comes to you.

8. Not to desire what does not come to him and enjoy thoroughly what comes to him, is the nature of wise people.

9. The whirling & wheeling world covers the self villainously.  Move about and act with this knowledge and awareness.  Do not give room to foolishness (and falsity).

10. Those with integral knowledge perceive the rain exuberance of this mutable world and gradually free themselves from the phenomenal world.  Men of mean mind get hurt by this world.

11. Whoever overcomes his engrossment with phenomenal world in some way, and drowns himself in that Supreme state, such a one will never lose his pure understanding and intelligence.

12. Whoever knows that all this world is unreal and is freed from all objects, and epitomizes in himself all knowledge, he shall never come into the grip of ignorance.

13. ‘I and this world are one’ – whoever reaches this unswerving understanding, his mind discards both likes and dislikes.  He will never again be drowned in the sea of ‘samsāra’.

14. Firmly staying in that Supreme state, which is central to existent and nonexistent states, be free from the internal and external phenomenal world.  Never admit them into you.

15. O Rāma, engage yourself in works (in this world) with total detachment and free of all vāsanas.

16. A person who engages in works without any liking or dislike, works will not touch him.  He abides like a drop of water on a lotus leaf.

17. You may or may not indulge in seeing and touching with your mean instruments of mind.  But remain disinterested in all that.

18. Know that the feeling ‘I am this world’ as unreal and false.  And then do not be engrossed in anything even if your mind and senses drive you to something.  With this state of mind, you may or may not do works.

19. -20. O Rāma, when you do not relish the sense-driven activities, know then that you have attained knowledge and have crossed this ocean of ‘samsāra’.  Then you will easily get liberation.

21. O Rāma, with your intelligence separate the mind from ‘vāsanas’.  This will each you to the highest state.

22. Those who take the boat of all-wise intelligence can cross the ocean of world which is full of vāsanas.  Other will get drowned.

23. Attain that state of Self by inquiring into the nature of mind with courage and a razor-sharp intellect.

24. O Rāma, one should move and work in this world like a knower of the self and whose mind is enhanced by knowledge not like a stupid fellow.

25. The behavior and conduct of those liberated while in life and who are always contented and who are with divine intelligence, is worth following and not that of people who are pleasure-avaricious and depraved.

26. Those who know the nature of this world and Brahman neither discard nor desire to work in this world.  They accept everything and act.

27. Those who have realized the nature of cosmic existence and principle do not look for power.  They do not self aggrandize.  They do not look for riches or fame.  They will not tolerate lowly tendencies anywhere.

28. Such great souls do not grieve even if everything is lost or even if the garden of heaven is gained.  They never violate the law of existence.

29. They act on what comes to them without any desire or will.  They move about with abandon and pride on the chariot of body with a healthy mind.

30. O beautiful Rāma, you are one who have gained wide knowledge.  With your divine intelligence, be established in that knowledge.

31. Supported by proper and clean perception, cleansing the mind of malice, move about on this earth.  You shall attain the highest state.

32. O sinless Rāma, settled in mind, with foresight and with the good of all, attain the cool of self and act in the world.

Sri Valmiki

33. When the pure heated Vasista spoke thus Rāma was thrilled by those sweet words and the nectar of knowledge.  He became cool at heart like a full moon.