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2024-03-28, 9:26 PM |
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Chapter
8: What One
Learns from Nature and the Story of
Pingalâ
(1)
The
honorable brahmin said: 'Since there is sensual
happiness for as well
those in heaven as for those in hell o King, and because there
for all the embodied beings is also the unhappiness [as a
logical consequence, reaction or shadow], should an
intelligent person not desire such happiness [see B.G.
16:
16].
(2)
As
inactive as a python should one eat what is acquired
accidentally, whether it is much or little, tasteless or pure
and delicious food [7.13:
37-38].
(3)
Fasting for many days should one keep one's peace and patiently
wait when no food comes one's way, just like the python that
eats what providence provides [7.15:
15].
(4)
When one as well physically as mentally being strong maintains
the body without much effort, is one peaceful and not sleepy.
Even though one is capable of anything, should one [in that
situation refrain] from endeavoring.
(5)
A
sage pleasing and grave, unfathomable, unlimited and
unsurpassable [in his knowing] most surely is never
disturbed like the calm waters of the ocean [see also B.G.
12:
15].
(6)
Destitute or flourishing with the desirable, does someone wise,
with Nârâyana as the One Supreme, swell nor dry up,
just like the ocean with the rivers [B.G. 2:
70].
(7)
Seeing
a woman does he who didn't conquer his senses, tempted by that
seductive illusory energy of God, blindly fall down into the
darkness, just like a moth falls into the fire.
(8)
Upon seeing the clothing, golden ornaments and so on of the
women the way it is arranged by mâyâ, will a
person lacking in discrimination with his desire for
sense-gratification feel aroused by lusty desires and no doubt,
the way a moth is destroyed, loose his spiritual insight
[B.G. 2:
62-63].
(9)
Eating
little bits of food, just enough to keep the body alive, should
one being wise practice [social] security [being of
nonviolence] with the householders and thus be of the
occupation of a honeybee [5.5:
3, 7.2:
11-13,
7.12:
6. 7.14:
5, 7.15:
15 and B.G.
4:
21].
(10)
An intelligent human being should from the smallest as well as
the biggest religious scriptures extract the essence, just like
a honey bee does with all the flowers big and small
[11.7:
23, B.G.
15:
15].
(11)
Not being a collector like a honeybee is, should one with the
belly as one's container and the hand as one's plate accept
food in charity and not keep it for the night or the next day.
(12)
A mendicant should not store things for the night or the
following day, because he otherwise like a honeybee collecting
more and more will be lost.
(13)
A
mendicant must not touch a girl, not even one of wood or with
his foot, because he otherwise, like an elephant is captured by
a she-elephant, will be captured by the physical contact.
(14)
Not to find death, should a man of wisdom never chase a woman,
because he otherwise will find destruction the way an elephant
is defeated by others superior in strength.
(15)
Riches
by a greedy person accumulated with great difficulty are
neither enjoyed personally nor given away to others; they are
rather enjoyed by someone else who stumbles across the wealth
and steals it the way one steals the honey from a beehive
[see also 5.13:
10].
(16)
Just as a honey thief is the first one to enjoy the honey that
painstakingly was collected, is also the ascetic the first one
to enjoy the eagerly desired blessings of the wealth that with
a lot of trouble was acquired by householders [see e.g.
1.19:
39 and
7.14:
17].
(17)
A
devotee living in the forest should never listen to worldly
songs and music; one should learn that by the example of the
deer that was captured being bewildered by the hunter's call
[see the
bhajans].
(18)
Taking pleasure in vulgar dancing, musical entertainment and
such songs, fell Rishyas'ringa, the son of Mrigî, because
he like a plaything was fully controlled by women [see
*,
5.8
and 5.25:
11].
(19)
The
way a fish following its taste with no intelligence is hooked
and finds its death, can also a person, disturbed by what the
tongue dictates, against his better knowledge waste his life.
(20)
The learned who are of selfrestraint quickly conquer the
material senses, except however for the tongue, of which the
taste for food increases with the fasting [see
prasâdam
prayer].
(21)
As long as the tongue is not conquered can of a human being,
despite of having conquered all the other senses, still not be
said that he's of self-control; but he who has conquered the
tongue, has conquered all [see also 8:
16 and B.G.
2:
59].
(22)
In
the city of Videha there used to be a
prostitute called
Pingalâ. Now learn from me o son of kings, what I learned
from her. (23)
She as a prostitute stood one night, to get a customer into her
house, outside in the doorway to display her beautiful figure.
(24)
O best among men, motivated for the money regarded she all the
men who passed by in the street as customers willing to pay the
price. (25-26)
As they came and went thought she, this way subsisting on
selling her love: 'Maybe will some guy carrying plenty approach
me for love and give me a lot'. With this vain hope not
sleeping and leaning in the doorway, walking down the street
and turning back to the house, it became midnight.
(27)
Morose in her desire for money dropping her face, awakened in
her anxiety that moment a supreme detachment which brought her
happiness. (28)
Detachment works like a sword cutting through the binding
network of hopes and desires. Please listen to the song she
sang after this change of heart. (29)
Dear King, evidently a person who doesn't know how to turn away
from the world will not be willing to give up what binds
physically, just as a human being lacking in wisdom never
desires to give up his sense of ownership. (30)
Pingalâ said: 'See how illusioned I am! I must be out of
my mind imagining all this in my lust with a fake lover.
(31)
Having given up on the pleasure that belongs to Him, the One
That is Most Near and Dear, was I, this ignoramus, most
insignificantly of a service that, never taming the desire,
brings misery, fear, distress, grief and illusion.
(32)
Oh how uselessly subjecting my soul to torture have I, busy as
a prostitute - the most reprehensible of occupations - with my
body desiring money and sexual pleasure, been selling out to
womanizers who, lusting for my body, are lamentable themselves.
(33)
What other woman would devote herself this much to this house
with nine doors which, constructed with the support of the
bones of a spine, the ribs, the hands and legs and covered by a
skin, hair and nails, is full of stool and drips urine
[compare B.G. 5:
13 and
4.25-28]?
(34)
Among the residents of Videha am I the one of an intelligence
that is really perplexed, for I am the one who most unchaste
desires to please her senses with another man different from
Him who gives us Soul, Acyuta. (35)
By paying the price of giving myself to Him, the well-wisher
that's absolutely the one most dear, the Lord and Soul of all
who are embodied; I will for certain enjoy like
Ramâ.
(36)
How much real happiness have the sensual pleasure and the men
who satisfied my senses provided? To have an eye on a wife or
the gods [even] has all, spread over time, a beginning
and an end. (37)
The
person of me so desperate must therefore somehow have pleased
the Supreme Lord Vishnu who brings the happiness that I now
experience with my having forsaken the sense
gratification!
(38)
A woman who is really unfortunate wouldn't have to face this
kind of hindrances on the path of selfrealization, because they
lead a person to shake off the detachment and find
[real] peace. (39)
Now that I refrain from cherishing false hope in relation to
sexual intercourse, do I, with accepting upon my head the great
help He offers, seek Him the Original Controller for my refuge.
(40)
Happily convinced without reservation that I thus will be able
to cope with whatever comes my way, I will manage to appreciate
it to live with only the One, the Self of Love and the
Happiness free from doubt. (41)
Who else but the Original Controller, who is capable of
delivering the living being that is seized by the timeserpent,
would there be when one like me in pleasing the senses is
bereft of all insight and fell down in the dark well of the
material ocean [see also 10.34]?
(42)
When the self thus can behold the universe as being seized by
the timeserpent, becomes he, attentively detached from all that
is material, for sure his own protector.'
(43)
The
honorable brahmin said: 'Thus having decided to cut with the
desperation that was caused by her desire for lovers, sat she
down on her bed having found inner peace. (44)
With the insight that the greatest unhappiness consists of a
constant desire and that being free from expectations is of the
contrary, slept Pingalâ happily now that she had given up
to hanker for lovers.'
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