21. Patience is converted into impatience; man is liable to the states of birth and death; good company is rare, but bad company is ever within the reach of every body.
22. All individual existences are liable to appear and disappear; all desires are chains to the world, and all worldly beings are ever seen to be led away perforce where no body can tell.
23. What reliance can there be on human life, when the points of the compass become indistinct and undiscernible; when the countries and places change their positions and names, and when mountains even are liable to be dilapidated?
24. What reliance can there be on man, when the heavens are swallowed in infinity, when this world is absorbed in nothingness, and the very earth loses her stability?
25. What reliance can there be on men like ourselves, when the very seas are liable to be dried up, when the stars are doomed to fade away and disappear, and when the most perfect of beings are liable to dissolution?
26. What reliance can there be on men like us, when even the demigods are liable to destruction, when the polar star is known to change its place, and when the immortal gods are doomed to mortality?
27. What reliance can there be on men like us, when Indra is doomed to be defeated by demons; when even death is hindered from his aim, and when the current air ceases to breathe?
28. What reliance can there be on men like us, when the very moon is to vanish with the sky, when the very sun is to be split into pieces, and when fire itself is to become frigid and cold?
29. What reliance can there be on men like us, when the very Hari and Brahmá are to be absorbed into the Great One, and when Siva himself is to be no more.
30. What reliance can there be on men like us, when the duration of time comes to be counted, when Destiny is destined to her final destiny, and when all vacuity loses itself in infinity?