74. By practice of these perfections, one evades the miseries of this world; and it is by subjection of the indomitably elephantine senses, that one can arrive to these perfections.
75. Hear me relate to you Ráma, of a furious elephant, which with its protruded tusks, was ever ready to attack others.
76. And as this elephant was about to kill many men, unless it could be killed by some one of them; so are the senses of men like ferocious elephants of destruction to them.
77. Hence every man becomes victorious in all the stages of yoga, who has the valour of destroying this elephant of its sensuality the very first step of it.
78. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, who is this victorious hero in the field of battle, and what is the nature of this elephant that is his enemy, and what are these grounds of combat where he encounters him, and the manner how he foils and kills this great foe of his.
79. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma! it is our concupiscence which has the gigantic figure of this elephant, and which roams at random in the forest of our bodies, and sports in the demonstrations of all our passions and feelings.
80. It hides itself in the covert of our hearts, and has our acts for its great tusks; its fury is our ardent desire of anything, and our great ambition is its huge body.
81. All the scenes on earth are the fields for its battle, where men are often foiled in their pursuit of any.
82. The elephant of concupiscence kills members of miserly and covetous men, in the state of their wish or desire, or exertions and effort, or longing and hankering after anything.