60. Those men are reckoned the most prosperous, and best disposed in their minds in this earth; who have the manliness to govern their minds, instead of being governed by them.
61. I revere those pure and holy men, who have quelled the huge and crooked serpent of their minds, lying coiling in the cave of their hearts; and who rest in the inward tranquility and serenity of their souls.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE NON-ENTITY OF THE MIND.
Argument. The means of repressing the force of the senses, and of curbing the sensual desires of men.
Vasishtha continued:—The vast domain of death, in region of hell, is full of the furious elephants of our sins; and the ungovernable enemies of the senses with the arrows of desires. (i.e. Hell is the abode of sinners, sensualists and the greedy).
2. Our senses are our invincible enemies, being the sources of all misdeeds and wicked actions. They are the ungrateful miscreants against the body, in which they have found their refuge.
3. The roving senses like flying birds, have found their nest in the body; whence with their outstretched wings of right and wrong, they pounce on their prey like vultures.
4. He who can entrap these greedy birds of the senses, under the snare of his right reason, is never ensnared in his person in the trap of sin, but breaks its bonds as the elephant does his fetters.
5. He who indulges himself in sensual pleasures which are pleasant at first, will have to be cloyed in them in process of time. (Pleasure is followed by pain. Or: Rills of pleasure not sincere.)
6. He who is fraught with the treasure of knowledge in his frail body, is not to be overcome by his inward enemies of sensual appetites.