13. Yet the wicked passions and desires, have no power to destroy the perfected understanding; as the lesser gales of minor deluges, are not strong enough to remove the mountain. (The great deluge is the mahákalpánta, and the partial ones are called the Khanda or yuga-pralayas).
14. Unless the flowery arbor of reason, takes its deep root in the ground of the human mind, it is liable to be shaken at every blast of the conflicting thoughts; because the unstable soul can have no stability; nor the uncertain mind can have any certainty.
15. He whose mind does not stick to strict reasoning, either when he is sitting or walking, or waking or sleeping; is said to be dead to reason.
16. Therefore think always within yourself, and in the society of good people, about what is all this, what is this world, and what is this body in a spiritual light. (i.e. Spiritually considered, the material universe will disappear from view).
17. Reason displays the darkness of ignorance, and shows the state of the Supreme as clearly, as when the light of the lamp shows everything clearly in the room. (Hence reason is said to be the light of the soul).
18. The light of knowledge dispels the gloom of sorrow, as the solar light puts to flight the shadow of night. (Knowledge is the sunlight of the soul).
19. Upon appearance of the light of knowledge, the knowable comes to appear of itself; as the appearance of sunlight in the sky, shows every object on earth below.
20. That science which brings to the knowledge of Divine Truth, the same knowledge is known as self-same with the knowable Truth itself.
21. Spiritual knowledge is the result of reason, and is reckoned as the only true knowledge by the wise; it includes the knowledge of the knowable soul, as the water contains its sweetness within itself.
22. The man knowing all knowledge, becomes full of knowledge; as the strong dramdrinker turns a tippler himself. (Fullness of spiritual knowledge is compared with hard drinking, in the mystic poetry of orientals, to denote the inward rapture which is caused by both).