31. It is by performance of ritual duties and observance of the prescribed rules, that the demerits of former births are expunged.
32. Upon expurgation of former demerits, the understanding turns of itself to take cognizance of spiritual matters, like the simultaneous flight of the crow towards the falling fruit of the palm.
33. But those that are devoted only to ritual acts, are like persons plunged in an eddy, wherein they are whirled up and down until they come to perceive the state of supreme (felicity).
34. Seeing this (illusory) state of the world, a man must shake off the delusion of his worldly-mindedness, just as the elephant breaks loose from his fetters.
35. It is too intricate, O Ráma! to understand the course of this boundless world, and not even the greatest of embodied beings (as man) can know it without true knowledge.
36. Know, O support of Raghu’s race! that men of great understandings have got over the unfordable ocean of the world by means of the raft of their knowledge and reason.
37. Now hear with attention and steadiness of your mind, this rational knowledge for your deliverance from the flood of this world.
38. The unceasing excitements of the senses and the fears and miseries of the world, will continually disturb the mind, without the remedy of right reason.
39. There is naught beside rational knowledge, that can enable holy men to endure the afflictions of the opposite extremes of heat and cold and wind and rain.
40. The incessant cares and miseries which befal to men at every step, serve sometimes to torment the ignorant mind as a flame of fire burns away the straw.