30. The objects of sensual enjoyment, are larking in the minds of men, like cranes gabbling in the lakes, and there is no prospect of the true and best object in the mind of any body.
31. We meet with one hardship after another, and buffet in the waves of endless miseries in this earth; and yet are we so shameless, as not to feel ourselves disgusted with them.
32. We see all the desirable objects to which we attach our thoughts, to be frail and perishing; and yet we do not seek the imperishable one, and our everlasting good in the equanimity of the Soul.
33. Whatever we see to be pleasant in the beginning (as pleasures), or in the middle (as youth), or in the end (as virtuous deeds), and at all times (as earthly goods), are all unholy and subject to decay.
34. Whatever objects are dear to the hearts of men, they are all found to be subject to the changes of their rise and fall (i.e. their growth and decay).
35. Ignorant people are everywhere enclined to evil acts, and they grow day by day more hardened in their wicked practices. They repent every day for their sins, but never reprove themselves for the better.
36. Senseless men are never the better for anything, being devoid of sense in their boyhood, and heated by their passions in youth. In their latter days, they are oppressed with the care of their families, and in the end thy are overcome by sorrow and remorse.
37. Here the entrance and exit (i.e. the birth and death), are both accompanied with pain and sorrow (for men come to and go away from the world with crying). Here every state of life is contaminated by its reverse (as health by disease, youth by age, and affluence by poverty). Everything is unsubstantial in this seeming substantial world, and yet the ignorant rely in its unreal substantiality.
38. The real good that is derived here by means of painful austerities, are the arduous sacrifices of rájasúyá asvamedha and others, or the attainment of heaven; which has no reality in it, by reason of its short duration of the small portion of a kalpa compared with eternity. (The Hindu heaven is no lasting bliss).
39. What is this heaven and where is it situated, whether below or above us or in this nether world; and where its residents are not overtaken by multitudes of locust-like evils? (The Sruti says: “Evil spirits infest the heavens and they drove the gods from it.” So we read of the Titan’s and Satan’s band invading heaven).