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इष्टोपदेश
Note: The thoughtful mind only discovers the world to be full of
i pain in all conditions. No one thinks of associating happiness with the conditions of existence in the lower grades of life. The trees are rooted to the spot and remain perpetually exposed to the inclemency of seasons; they are further subjected to all kinds of afflictions in the shape of cutting. piercing, burning, uprooting and the like. The smaller insects are destroyed by the thousand by the careless movements of their bigger fellow-beings. No one cares for their writhings and suffering. The birds and beasts and fishes are seized and devoured mercilessly by animals and men. Man himself is a constant prey to the fear of death, and lives in perpetual dread of calamity and misfortune. Those even who may be regarded as favourites of fortune are troubled with many kinds of mental and bodily troubles of their own and of their relations and friends. And at the end of a career, even where it has been the least undesirable, there is nothing more comforting than the grave or the burning pyre to look forward to. Death and the blankness of death ever stare the thinking being in the face. Human life is short and the best of its conditions is ephemeral and fleeting; you have hardly celebrated the advent of a joy when its place is taken by affliction in some form or other. Those who are unlucky spend their whole time in crying and lamentations. Their suffering ceases even to excite the pity of the passers by, by its frequency. Some of them actually experience all the excruciating horrors of hell-life without being in hell! Kings and millionaires and potentates are no exceptions; they are subject to the painand misery which the flesh is heir to. The acharya therefore, justly says that this world of transmigratory life is so full of suffering and pain that you have hardly got-over one affliction when its place has been filled up with a dozen others. The wise should, therefore, only seek to obtain release from the world to obtain nirvana where there is eternal peace and joy and life unending.
दुरज्येनासुरक्ष्येण नश्वरेण धनादिना ।
स्वस्थंमन्यो जनः कोऽपि ज्वरवानिव सपिषा ॥१३॥ He who regards himself as happy on account of the possession of wealth and other like objects of desire, that are obtained with great trouble, that require a lot of botheration in their protection and that are after all perishable, is like the fool who eats clarified butter when suffering from fever and then thinks that he is enjoying good health !
Note:Ghee (clarified butter) only goes to aggravate fever. so that he who eats ghee in that condition and regards himself as healthy because of his eating Ghee is a big fool. Precisely the same is the case with the man who considers himself happy because he is surrounded by the objects and
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