acts of each, which are even like a seed (destined to sprout forth into the tree of life).  O hero amongst men, as a wooden doll is made to move its limbs by the wire-puller, so are creatures made to work by the Lord of all.  O Bharata, like space that covereth every object, God, pervading every creature, ordaineth its weal or woe.  Like a bird tied with a string, every creature is dependent on God.  Every one is subject to God and none else.  No one can be his own ordainer.  Like a pearl on its string, or a bull held fast by the cord passing through its nose, or a tree fallen from the bank into the middle of the stream, every creature followeth the command of the Creator, because imbued with His Spirit and because established in Him.  And man himself, dependent on the Universal Soul, cannot pass a moment independently.  Enveloped in darkness, creatures are not masters of their own weal or woe.  They go to heaven or hell urged by God Himself.  Like light straws dependent on strong winds, all creatures, O Bharatas, are dependent on God!  And God himself, pervading all creatures and engaged in acts right and wrong, moveth in the universe, though none can say This is God!  This body with its physical attributes is only the means by which God—­the Supreme Lord of all maketh (every creature) to reap fruits that are good or bad.  Behold the power of illusion that hath been spread by God, who confounding with his illusion, maketh creatures slay their fellows!  Truth-knowing Munis behold those differently.  They appear to them in a different light, even like the rays of the Sun (which to ordinary eyes are only a pencil of light, while to eyes more penetrating seem fraught with the germs of food and drink).  Ordinary men behold the things of the earth otherwise.  It is God who maketh them all, adopting different processes in their creation and destruction.  And, O Yudhishthira, the Self-create Grandsire, Almighty God, spreading illusion, slayeth his creatures by the instrumentality of his creatures, as one may break a piece of inert and senseless wood with wood, or stone with stone, or iron with iron.  And the Supreme Lord, according to his pleasure, sporteth with His creatures, creating and destroying them, like a child with his toy (of soft earth).  O king, it doth seem to me that God behaveth towards his creatures like a father or mother unto them.  Like a vicious person, He seemeth to bear himself towards them in anger!  Beholding superior and well-behaved and modest persons persecuted, while the sinful are happy, I am sorely troubled.  Beholding this thy distress and the prosperity of Suyodhana, I do not speak highly of the Great Ordainer who suffereth such inequality!  O sir, what fruits doth the Great Ordainer reap by granting prosperity to Dhritarashtra’s son who transgresseth the ordinances, who is crooked and covetous, and who injureth virtue and religion!  If the act done pursueth the doer and none else, then certainly it is God himself who is stained with the sin of every act.  If however, the sin of an act done doth not attach to the doer, then (individual) might (and not God) is the true cause of acts, and I grieve for those that have no might!’”