17. The ever increasing greediness of the mind, and the subjection of the intellect under the dominion of foolhardiness, drives men to distant countries in search of a livelihood. (One's natal land is enough to supply him with a simple living).
18. Again the working at improper seasons (as at night and in rain and heat), and the doing of improper actions; the company of infamous men, and aptitude to wicked habits and practices.
19. The weakness and fulness of the intestines caused by sparing food on the one hand, and its excess on the other, cause the derangement of the humours and the disorder of the constitution.
20. It is by cause of this disordered state of the body, that a great many diseases grow in it, both by reason of the deficit as well as the excess of its humours; as a river becomes foul both in its fulness and low water in the rain and summer heat.
21. As the good or bad proclivities of men, are the results of their actions of prior and present births, so the anxieties and diseases of the present state, are the effects of the good and bad deeds both of this life as also those of the past.
22. I have told you Ráma, about the growth of the diseases and anxieties in the quintessential bodies of men; now hear me tell you the mode of extirpating them from the human constitution.
23. There are two sorts of diseases here common to human nature, namely—the ordinary ones and the essential; the ordinary ones are the occurrences of daily life, and the essential is what is inborn in our nature. (The ordinary cares for supplying our natural wants are of the first sort, and the inbred errors and affections of the mind are of other kind).
24. The ordinary anxieties are removed by the attainments of the objects in want; and the diseases growing out of them, are also removed by the removal of our anxious cares.
25. But the essential infirmities of one's dispositions, being bred in the blood and bone, cannot be removed from the body, without the knowledge of the soul; as the error of the snake in the rope, is removed only by examination of the rope. (So the affection will be found to rise in the mind and not rooted in the soul).