Observations placeholder

Chapter 9: Detachment from All that is Material

(5) Once, at the house of a young girl all of whose relatives [that day] had gone to another place, a couple of men arrived who wanted to marry her. She received them with great hospitality.

(6) Being alone she beat the rice so that her guests could eat, and doing so the conch shell bracelets on her arms made a lot of noise.

(8) From those two there was still the noise of course as she was husking the rice, but after she further removed one from each pair of shell ornaments, only one remained and no sound could be heard anymore.

(9) Oh subduer of the enemy, I, wandering around in all regions searching for the truth about the world, personally witnessed the lesson taught by this girl.

(10) When there are many people in one place, quarrels will rise, even from two people there will be such conduct. Therefore one should live alone, just like the bracelet of the girl.

(11) The mind should be steadied by detachment and a regulated yoga practice [vairâgya and abhyâsa] in which one conquers one's breathing in sitting postures and carefully concentrates on one point

(12) When the mind has achieved that position and step by step is freed from its karma contamination, the mode of goodness increases in strength while passion and ignorance recede. Without this fuel [for one's karma] one then attains nirvâna,