The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.
those forms and scents (and the three other objects of the remaining three senses) that appear very agreeable.  Gradually, attachment, and aversion, and greed, and errors of judgment arise.  The mind of one overwhelmed by greed and error and affected by attachment and aversion is never directed to virtue.  One then begins with hypocrisy to do acts that are good.  Indeed, with hypocrisy one then seeks to acquire virtue, and with hypocrisy one likes to acquire wealth.  When one succeeds, O son of Kuru’s race, in winning wealth with hypocrisy, one sets one’s heart to such acquisition wholly.  It is then that one begins to do acts that are sinful, notwithstanding the admonitions of well-wishers and the wise, unto all which he makes answers plausibly consistent with reason and conformable to the injunctions of the scriptures.  Born of attachment and error, his sins, of three kinds, rapidly increase, for he thinks sinfully, speaks sinfully, and acts sinfully.  When he fairly starts on the way of sin, they that are good mark his wickedness.  They, however, that are of a disposition similar to that of the sinful man, enter into friendship with him.  He succeeds not in winning happiness even here.  Whence then would he succeed in winning happiness hereafter?  It is thus that one becomes sinful.  Listen now to me as I speak to thee of one that is righteous.  Such a man, inasmuch as he seeks the good of others, succeeds in winning good for himself.  By practising duties that are fraught with other people’s good, he attains at last to a highly agreeable end.  He who, aided by his wisdom, succeeds beforehand in beholding the faults above adverted to, who is skilled in judging of what is happiness and what is sorrow and how each is brought about, and who waits with reverence upon those that are good, makes progress in achieving virtue, both in consequence of his habit and such companionship of the good.  The mind of such a person takes delight in virtue, and he lives on, making virtue his support.  If he sets his heart on the acquisition of wealth, he desires only such wealth as may be acquired in righteous ways.  Indeed, he waters the roots of only those things in which he sees merit.  In this way, doth one become righteous and acquires friends that are good.  In consequence of his acquisition of friends, of wealth, and of children, he sports in happiness both here and hereafter.  The mastery (in respect of enjoyment) that a living creature attains over sound, touch, taste, form, and scent, O Bharata, represents the fruit of virtue.[1296] Remember this.  Having obtained the fruit of virtue, O Yudhishthira, such a man does not give himself up to joy.  Without being contented with such (visible) fruits of virtue he betakes himself to Renunciation, led on by the eye of knowledge.  When, having acquired the eye of knowledge, he ceases to take pleasure in the gratification of desire, in taste and in scent, when he does net allow his mind to run towards sound, touch and form,
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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.