12. Until we can gain true knowledge, and have the evenness of our minds; and until we can have a full knowledge of things, we can have no rest in us.
13. Without the knowledge of the soul and acquisition of true knowledge, which is the greatest remedy against all diseases of the mind, it is impossible to escape from the pestilence of the world.
14. The poisonous plant of worldliness, sprouts forth in our childhood; it shoots out in its leaves in our youth, it flowers in our old age, and never fructifies before our death. (We live to long after the fruit best never to earn it).
15. The body decays as a withered tree, and our relatives flutter as bees over it; old age overtakes us with its blossoming grey hairs, and produces the fruit of death.
16. We have to reap the bitter fruits of our actions of bygone times, which are laid up in store, and fructify in their seasons; and thus years upon years glide upon us, in the same monotonous rotation of business, and the sad tenor of our minds.
17. This tall body of ours, rising as a thief on the ground, has all its inner cells and caves, filled with the thorns of our cravings; it is the abode of the serpentine train of our actions, emitting the poison of continuous woe in our repeated transmigrations in new bodies.
18. See how our days and nights are rolling on, in their circuit of continued misery and misfortune, which are misconstrued by men for transient joy and good fortune.
19. See how our lives are spent, in useless pursuits after objects of our vain wishes; and how we misspend our time with trifles, that are of no good to us.
20. The furious elephant of the ungoverned mind, breaks loose from its fetters of good sense; and then joining with the elephants of wild desire, ranges at large without rest or sleep.
21. The bawling tongue sets on screaming, as a vulture in the hollow of the tree of human body; and fosters itself by feeding on the gems of thought (chintámani), lying hidden in it. (The talkative fool is no thoughtful man).