Leading to the heart there is a duct called Manovaha.  It draws from every part of the human body the vital seed which is born of desire.  Numerous other ducts branching out from that principal one extend into every part of the body and bearing the element of heat cause the sense of vision (and the rest).  As the butter that lies within milk is churned up by churning rods, even so the desires that are generated in the mind (by the sight or thought of women) draw together the vital seed that lies within the body.  In the midst of even our dreams passion having birth in imagination assails the mind, with the result that the duct already named, viz., Manovaha, throws out the vital seed born of desire.  The great and divine Rishi Atri is well-conversant with the subject of the generation of the vital seed.  The juices that are yielded by food, the duct called Manovaha, and the desire that is born of imagination,—­these three are the causes that originate the vital seed which has Indra for its presiding deity.  The passion that aids in the emission of this fluid is, therefore, called Indriya.  Those persons who know that the course of vital seed is the cause of (that sinful state of things called) intermixture of castes, are men of restrained passions.  Their sins are regarded to have been burnt off, and they are never subjected to rebirth.  He that betakes himself to action simply for the purposes of sustaining his body, reducing with the aid of the mind the (three) attributes (of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness) into a state of uniformity, and brings at his last moments the vital breaths to the duct called Manovaha, escapes the obligation of rebirth.[751] The Mind is sure to gain Knowledge.  It is the Mind that takes the form of all things.  The minds of all high-souled persons, attaining to success through meditation, become freed from desire, eternal, and luminous.[752] Therefore, for destroying the mind (as mind), one should do only sinless deeds and freeing oneself from the attributes of Passion and Darkness, one is sure to attain to an end that is very desirable.[753] Knowledge (ordinarily) acquired in younger days becomes weakened with decrepitude.  A person, however, of ripe understanding succeeds, through the auspicious effects of past lives, in destroying his desires.[754] Such a person, by transcending the bonds of the body and the senses like a traveller crossing a path full of obstacles, and transgressing all faults he sees, succeeds in tasting the nectar (of Emancipation).’”

SECTION CCXV

“Bhishma said, ’Living creatures, by being attached to objects of the senses which are always fraught with evil, become helpless.  Those high-souled persons, however, who are not attached to them, attain to the highest end.  The man of intelligence, beholding the world over-whelmed with the evils constituted by birth, death, decrepitude, sorrow, disease, and anxieties, should exert themselves for the attainment