Site menuChapter 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.'
