2. He discharged his duties as they presented themselves to him, without any concern or expectation of their rewards. He did them awaking as if it were in his sleep. Gloss:—He did his acts by rote, but wot not what he did in his insensibility of them; and such acts of insensibility are free from culpability or retribution.
3. Having discharged his duties of the day and honoured the gods and the priests, he passed the night absorbed in his meditations.
4. His mind being set at ease, and his roving thoughts repressed from their objects, he thus communed with his mind at the dead of night, and said:—
5. O my mind that art roving all about with the revolving world, know that such restlessness of thine, is not agreeable to peace of the soul; therefore rest thou in quiet from thy wanderings abroad.
6. It is thy business to imagine many things at thy pleasure, and as thou thinkest thou hast a world of thoughts present before thee every moment. (For all things are but creations of the imaginative mind).
7. Thou shootest forth in innumerable woes by the desire of endless enjoyments, as a tree shoots out into a hundred branches, by its being watered at the roots.
8. Now as our births and lives and worldly affairs, are all productions of our wistful thoughts, I pray thee therefore, O my mind! to rest in quiet by abandonment of thy earthly desires.
9. O my friendly mind! weigh well this transient world in thy thoughts, and depend upon it, shouldst thou find aught of substantiality in it.
10. Forsake thy fond reliance on these visible phenomena; leave these things, and rove about at thy free will without caring for any thing.
11. Whether this unreal scene, may appear to or disappear from thy sight, thou shouldst not suffer thyself to be affected by it in either case.