13. Ráma continued to reflect on the lectures of Vasishtha, which appeared as charming to him, as the cry of the parent elephant, is gladsome to its tender young (karabha).
14. What means this wandering of ours, said he, in this world, and why is it that all these men and other animals, are bound to make their entrances and exits in this evanescent theatre?
15. What is the form of our mind and how is it to be governed? What is this illusion (Máyá) of the world, whence hath its rise and how is it to be avoided?
16. What is the good or evil of getting rid of this illusion, and how does it stretch over and overpower on the soul, or is made to leave it by any means in our power?
17. What does the muni say with regard to the means, and effect of curbing the appetites of the mind? What does he say regarding the restraining of our organs, and what about the tranquility of the soul?
18. Our hearts and minds, our living souls and their delusion, tend to stretch out the phenomenal world before us; and our very souls make a reality of the unreal existence.
19. All these things are linked together in our minds, and are weakened only by the weakening of our mental appetites. But how are these to be avoided in order to get rid of our misery.
20. The slender light of reason is over-shadowed, like a single crane in the air, by the dark cloud of passions and appetites; how am I then to distinguish the right from wrong, as the goose separates the milk from the water?
21. It is as hard to shun our appetites on the one hand, as it is impossible to avoid our troubles here, without the utter annihilation of our appetency. Here is the difficulty in both ways.
22. Again the mind is the leader to our spiritual knowledge on the one hand, and our seducer also to worldliness on the other. We know not which way to be led by it. The difficulty is as great as a man’s mounting on a mountain, or a child’s escaping from the fear of a yaksha.