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Teachings of Mahāvīra
123.
has not given up pleasures will not be able to reach the true end of his soul. He will go astray again and again though he has been taught the right way. A sinner will be born in hell and a virtuous man will be born in heaven.
The best of the sages who are free from delusion and possess perfect knowledge and faith, speaks for the benefit, eternal welfare, and the final liberation of all beings.
It is difficult to satisfy anybody. The more one gets the more one wants. Man's desire increases with his means. One should not desire women who continually change their minds, who entice men, and then make a sport of them as of slaves.1
VANITY OF WORLDLY PLEASURES
Karma is produced by sinful thoughts, and it is by the influence of his Karma that Chitra and Sambhūta were separated. All singing is but prattle, all dancing is but mocking, all ornaments are but a burden, all pleasures produce but pain. Pleasures, which are liked by the ignorant and which produce pain, do not delight pious monks who do not care for pleasures but are intent on the virtue of right conduct. He who has not done good deeds in this life and who has not practised the Law, repents of it in the next world or even when he has become a prey to death which leads off a man in his last hour. He alone will have to endure his sufferings, neither his kinsmen, nor his friends, nor his sons, nor his relations, for Karma follows the doer. Life drags on towards death continuously, and old age carries off the vigour of man." Time runs out and the days quickly pass. Pleasures which men enjoy are not permanent. They leave them as soon as they come just as a bird leaves a tree devoid of fruits. If onc is unable to give up pleasures, then one must do noble
1. Uttara, VIII. 17-18.
2. Ibid, XIII, S.
3. Ibid, XIII, 16.
4. Ibid, 17.
5. Ibid, 21-23.
6. Ibid, 26.
