How grief may be avoided and happiness enjoyed. The conversation between Sagara and Arishthanimi

Yudhishthira said How, O grandfather, should a king like us act in this world, keeping in view the great object of acquisition? What attributes, again, should he always possess so that he may be liberated from attachments.

Bhishma said-I shall in this connection recite to you the old narrative that was uttered by Arishtanemi to Sagara who had sought his advice.

Sagara said What is that good, O Brahmana, by doing which one may enjoy happiness here? How, indeed, may one avoid grief and agitation? I wish to know all this.

Bhishma said Thus addressed by Sagara, Arishtanemi of Tarkshya's race, conversant with all the scriptures, considering the enquiries ad deserving fully of his instructions, said these words:सुखं मोक्षसुखं लोके न च मूढोऽवगच्छति।

The happiness of Liberation is true happiness in the world. The ignorant man knows is not, attached, as he is, to children and animals and possessed of riches and corn.

The understanding that is attached to worldly objects and the longing mind baffle all skilful treatment. The ignorant man who is bound is the fetters of affection cannot acquire Liberation.

I shall now describe to you all the fetters which originate from the affections. Hear them with attention. Indeed, they can be heard with profit by one who is endued with knowledge.

Having procreated children in due time and married them when they become young men, and having found them to be competent for earning their livelihood, do you free youself from all attachments and rove about happily.

When you find you dear consort grown old in years and attached to the son she has given birth to, do you leave her in time, keeping in view the highest object of acquisition.

Whether you get a son or not, having, during the first years of your life, duly enjoyed with your senses the objects thereof, liberate yourself from attachments and rove about in happiness.

Having satisfied the senses with their objects, you should suppress the desire of further indulging them. Liberating yourself from attachments, you should rove in happiness, contenting yourself with what is got without exertion and previous calculation, and loO king impartially towards all creatures and objects.

Thus, O son, have I told you briefly. Hear me now, for I shall tell you fully, the desirability of the acquisition of Liberation.

Those persons who live in this world shorn of attachments and fear, succeed in acquiring happiness. Those persons, however, who are attached to worldly objects, forsooth, meet with destruction,

Worms and ants are engaged in the acquisition of food and are seen to die in the search. They who are shorn or attachments are happy, while they who are attached to worldly objects meet with destruction.

If you wish to acquire Liberation you should never place your thoughts on your relatives, thinking, How shall these live without me?

A living creature takes birth by himself, and, grow by himself, and acquires happiness and misery, and death by himself.

In this world people enjoy and obtain good and cloth and other acquisitions acquired by either their parents or themselves. This is the result of the acts of pristine lives, for nothing can be had in this life which is not the result of the past.

All creatures live on the Earth, protected by their own acts, and acquiring their food as the result of what is ordained by Him who allots the fruits of acts.

A man is but a lump of clay, and always depends completely on their forces. A man, being thus so weak, what rational motive can one have for protecting and feeding his relatives?

When your relatives are carried away by Death in your very presence and despite you utmost efforts to save them, that circumstance alone should awaken you.

In the very life-time of your relatives and before own duty is completed of feeding and protecting them, you may yourself die and leave them.

After your relatives have been carried away from this world by death, you cannot know what becomes of them there,—that is, whether they are happy or miserable. This fact ought to awaken you.

When on account of the fruits of their own acts your relatives can maintain themselves in this world whether you live or die, thinking of this you should do what is for your own wellbeing.

When such is the case, who is the world is to be considered as whose? Do you, therefore, think of acquiring Liberation. Hear now what more I shall say to you.

That man of firm Soul, forsooth, liberated who has conquered hunger and thirst and such other states of the body, as also anger and cupidity and error.

That man is always liberated who does not forget himself, through folly, by indulging in gambling and drinking and concubinage and the chase.

That man who is really affected by sorrow for being compelled to eat every day and every night for maintaining life, is said to be congnisant of the faults of life.

Once who, as the outcome of careful reflection, considers his repeated births as due to sexual congress with women, is held to be freed from attachments.

That man is certainly Liberated who knows truly the nature of the birth, the destruction, and the acts of living creatures.

That man becomes certainly freed who seeks only a handful of corn, for the support of life, from amidst millions upon millions of carts loaded with gain, and who finds no difference between a shad of bamboo and reeds and a palace.

That man becomes certainly freed who seeks the world as afflicted by death, disease and famine.

Indeed, one who sees the world to consist of eaters and edibles, and who is never affected by pleasure and pain begotten by illusion, is considered as liberated.

One, who sees all the objects in the form of Fire and Soma, he is never affected by wonderful pleasures and is considered as liberated.

That man who considers a soft bed on a fine bed-stead and the hard ground as equal, and who considers good shali rice and hard thick rice as equal, is liberated.

That man who considers linen and cloth made of grass as equal, and who considers cloth of silk and barks of trees as the same, and who sees no difference between cleans sheepskin and unclean leather, is liberated.

That man who considers this world as the result of the combination of the five principal elements, and who acts in this world, keeping this notion foremost, is liberated.

That man who considers pleasure and pain in the same light and gain and loss as equal, and victory and defeat as the same to whom like and dislike are the same, and who is unmoved under fear and anxiety, is perfectly liberated.

That man who considers his body which had so many inperfections, to be only a mass of blood, urine and excreta, as also of disorders and diseases, is liberated,

That man becomes liberated who always recollects that this body, when possessed by decrepitude, becomes assailed by wrinkless and white hairs and leanness and paleness of complexion and a bending of the form.

That man who considers his body as subject to loss of power, weakness of sight, deafness, and loss of strength, is liberated.

That man who knows that the very Rishis, the gods, and the Asuras are beings that have to depart form their respective spheres to other regions, is liberated.

That man who knows that thousands of kings possessed of even great power have dies, succeeds in becoming liberated.

That man who knows that in this world the acquisition of objects is always hard, that pain of profuse, and that the maintenance of relative is always painful becomes liberated.

Seeing the abundant faults of children and of other men, who is there that would worship Liberation?

That man who, enlightened by the scriptures and the experience of the world sees every human concern in this world to be unreal, becomes liberated.

Remembering these words of mine, do you act like one who has become liberated, whether it is a life of domesticity that you would lead or pursue Liberation without allowing your understanding to be confounded.

Hearing these words of his with attention, king Sagara, acquired those virtues which yield liberation and continued, with their help to rule his subjects.