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METAPHYSICS which lasts but a little space! Woe on the temptations of the flesh, which lure the heart of the wige! Would that there were neitlier old age, nor illness, cor death and the pains of death" (The Lalita Vistara, qaoted froro.
Metchnikoff's Nature of Man.) In the same straip, again, it is said:"Miserable in truth is this world, in which there is beginning,
bixtb, growing old, death, disappearance and renewal. Alas ......... to all who are there comes old age, and
illuese, and death and their like"-(Ibid.) Truly, is this world, which appears so beautiful and full of pleasure and fun to the thoughtless, like the Giant's Island in the Arabian Nights Entertain. ment, the unfortunate captives of which are fattened only to be devoured a while later! Here also we have nothing but old age, misery and death in store for us as the end of life in every one of its recurring phases, Those of us who have understood the nature of being and the terms of existence, and are sorrowful in heart, are the wise who withdraw themselves as completely as they can from the lusts and temptations of the flesha to ultimately escape from this huge cannibal's cave, but the rest, who abandon themselves to the pleasures of love and soog and dance, or who only cultivate refined Epicurean tastes, are seized upon and crushed and mangled in the powerful jaw's of the monster (Death) over and over again, in the course of their perennial rovings.
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