Such a man, his understanding being fully displayed, never finds fault with the course of conduct that prevails in the world.  One conversant with Emancipation says that the Supreme Soul is without beginning and without end; that it takes birth as all creatures; that it resides (as a witness) in the Jiva-soul; that it is inactive, and without form.  Only that man who meets with grief in consequence of his own misdeeds, slays numerous creatures for the purpose of warding off that grief.[1762] In consequence of such sacrifices, the performers have to attain to rebirths and have necessarily to perform innumerable acts on every side.  Such a man, blinded by error, and regarding that to be felicity which is really a source of grief, is continually rendered unhappy even like a sick person that eats food that is improper.  Such a man is pressed and grinded by his acts like any substance that is churned.  Bound by his acts, he obtains re-birth, the order of his life being determined by the nature of his acts.  Suffering many kinds of torture, he travels in a repeated round of rebirths even like a wheel that turns ceaselessly.  Thou, however, hast cut through all thy bonds.  Thou, abstainest from all acts!  Possessed of omniscience and the master of all things, let success be thine, and do thou become freed from all existent objects.  Through subjugation of their senses and the power of their penances, many persons (in days of yore), having destroyed the bonds of action, attained to high success and uninterrupted felicity.’”

SECTION CCCXXXI

“’Narada said, By listening to such scriptures as are blessed, as bring about tranquillity, as dispel grief, and as are productive of happiness, one attains to (a pure) understanding, and having attained to it obtains to high ’felicity.  A thousand causes of sorrow, a hundred causes of fear, from day to day, afflict one that is destitute of understanding, but not one that is possessed of wisdom and learning.  Do thou, therefore, listen to some old narratives as I recite them to you, for the object of dispelling thy griefs.  If one can subjugate one’s understanding, one is sure to attain to happiness.  By association of what is undesirable and dissociation from what is agreeable, only men of little intelligence, become subject to mental sorrow of every kind.  When things have become past, one should not grieve, thinking of their merits.  He that thinks of such past things with affection can never emancipate himself.  One should always seek to find out the faults of those things to which one begins to become attached.  One should always regard such things to be fraught with much evil.  By doing so, one should soon free oneself therefrom.  The man who grieves for what is past fails to acquire either wealth or religious merit or fame.  That which exists no longer cannot be obtained.  When such things pass away, they do not return (however keen the regret one may indulge