thy heart which is ever ready to deviate from the right course.  They whose understandings are always concerned with the present, who fearlessly regard the tomorrow as something quite remote,—­they who do not observe any restrictions in the matter of food,—­ate really senseless persons that fail to understand that this world is only a field of probation.[1713] Repairing to the fight of steps constituted by Righteousness, do thou ascend those steps one after another.  At present thou art like a worm that is employed in weaving its cocoon round itself and thereby depriving itself of all means of escape.  Do thou keep to thy left, without any scruple, the atheist who transgresses all restraints, who is situated like a house by the side of a fierce and encroaching current, (for the destruction he courts), and who (to others) seems to stand like a bamboo with its tall head erected in pride.[1714] Do thou with the raft of Yoga, cross the ocean of the world whose waters are constituted by thy five senses.  Having Desire and Wrath and Death for its fierce monsters, and owning birth for its vortex.  Do thou cross, with the raft of Righteousness, the world that is affected by Death and afflicted by Decrepitude, and upon which the thunder-bolts constituted by days and nights are falling incessantly.  When death is seeking thee at all moments, viz., when thou art sitting or lying down, it is certain that Death may get thee for his victim at any time.  Whence art thou to obtain thy rescue!  Like the she-wolf snatching away a lamb.  Death snatches away one that is still engaged in earning wealth and still unsatisfied in the indulgence of his pleasures.  When thou art destined to enter into the dark, do thou hold up the blazing lamp made of righteous understanding and whose flame has been well-husbanded out.  Failing into various forms one after another in the world of men, a creature obtains the status of Brahmanhood with great difficulty.  Thou hast obtained that status.  Do thou then, O son endeavour to maintain it (properly).[1715] A Brahman hath not been born for the gratification of desire.  On the other hand, his body is intended to be subjected to mortification and penances in this world so that incomparable happiness may be his in the next world.  The status of Brahmanhood is acquired with the aid of long-continued and austere penances.  Having acquired that status, one should never waste one’s time in the indulgence of one’s senses.  Always engaged in penances and self-restraint and desirous of what is for thy good, do thou live and act, devoted to peace and tranquillity.  The period of life, of every man, is like a steed.  The nature of that steed is unmanifest.  The (sixteen) elements (mentioned before) constitute its body.  Its nature is exceedingly subtile.  Kshanas, and Trutis, and Nimeshas are the hair on its body.  The twilights constitute its shoulder joints; The lighted and the dark fortnights are its two eyes of equal power.  Months are its other limbs.  That