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what is the good of this feasting with the Damocles-sword of sorrow threatening above your head ? Would it not be much better to give up all this possession guaranteeing such a doubtful happiness? To give it up as those saints of old did, of whom the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra (IX,15 f.) says :
चत्तपत्तकलत्तस्स निव्वावारस्स भिक्खणो । पियं न विज्जई किंचि अप्पियं पि न विज्जइ ।।
बहं खु मुणिणो भद्दमणागारस्स भिक्खणो । सव्वतो विप्पमुक्कस्स एगंतमणपस्सओ ।। *To the begging monk, who has given up family-life and all secular activity, nothing appears desirable and nothing undesirable." “Great indeed is the bliss of the monk, the homeless beggar, who is free from all attachment, and who is aware of his solitude (which includes the metaphysical
solitude of the soul)."
And then, says the wise, whether you hanker for its gain, or trouble for its preservation : all this happiness you are so particular about, means slavery in the last end. The anxiety you feel about it, fills your mind, and mars your thinking from morn till night, so that, in your continuous worrying about your business, your position, your hobbies, your friends, your pleasures, and your wife and children, you do not find so much time as to ask yourself why you are doing all that, what you live for, and where you are steering to. You think that you do not care to ponder over it. But in reality, you are not free to do so, because you are the slave of your attachment to that empty, transient bit of happiness, which is, in reality, no happiness at all. Would it not be much better for you to be unconnected with all this, to be your own master, to be like the Rșis and Munis of old, who, in their solitary meditations, unhampered by secular considerations, without comfort and
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