24. I do not wish to have what I have not, nor dare leave what I have already got; I am content with myself; so let me have what is mine and what I have. (The Yogis like Stoics, were fatalists and content with their lot).
25. I get no real good by my acts here, nor lose anything by refraining from them. What I get by my acts or want of action, is all Nil and Null of Vanity or Vanities, and nothing to my purpose or liking.
26. Whether I am doing or not doing, and whether my acts are proper or improper; I have nothing to desire here, nor anything desirable that I have to expect from them. (Hence no exertion will bring on the desired object, unless it is given by our lot).
27. I have got what was due to my past actions, and this body is the result of my former acts. It may be in its motion and action, or it may be still and fade away, which is the same thing to me.
28. The mind being set at ease by want of its action or passion, the actions of the body and its members, are alike in their effects to those of not doing them. (Involuntary actions done without the will are of no account).
29. The acts of men are reckoned as no acts of theirs, which happen to take place as the results of their destiny or previous actions. (The action or passion relates to the mind only, but the doing of destiny being involuntary, such action of men is accounted as no action of theirs).
30. The impression which the inward soul bears of its past actions and passions, the same gives its colour to the nature and character of the actions of men afterwards. Now that my soul has obtained its imperishable state of spirituality, I am freed from the mutabilities of the transmigrations of my body and mind. Commentary:—Janaka arrives after all his previous reasonings and deductions, to the conclusion of the certainty of his being an intellectual and spiritual being, endowed with an immortal soul, and entitled to everlasting life, after the destruction of the frail body and the changeful mind with it.
CHAPTER XI
SUBJECTION OF THE MIND.
Argument. Janaka’s Discharge of his Daily Rites, and Admonition to his Mind.
Vasishtha related:—Having thought so, Janaka rose up for performance of his daily rites as usual, and without the sense of his agency in them. He did his duty in the same manner as the sun rises every day to give the morn, without his consciousness of it.