s not break into a hundred pieces! I know thee, O
Desire, and all those things that are dear to thee! Seeking what is dear
to thee, I shall feel happiness in my own Self.[527] O Desire, I know thy
root. Thou springest from Will.[528]--I shall, therefore, avoid Will.
Thou shalt then be destroyed with thy roots. The desire for wealth can
never be fraught with happiness. If acquired, great is the anxiety that
the acquirer feels. If lost after acquisition, that is felt as death.
Lastly, respecting acquisition itself, it is very uncertain. Wealth
cannot be got by even the surrender of one's person. What can be more
painful than this? When acquired, one is never gratified with its
measure, but one continues to seek it. Like the sweet water of the
Ganges, wealth only increases one's hankering. It is my destruction. I am
now awakened. Do thou, O Desire, leave me! Let that Desire which has
taken refuge in this my body,--this compound of (five) elements,--go
whithersoever it chooses and live happily whithersoever it likes.[529] Ye
all that are not of the Soul, I have no joy in you, for ye follow the
lead of Desire and Cupidity! Abandoning all of you I shall take refuge in
the quality of Goodness.[530] Beholding all creatures in my own body and
my own mind, and devoting my reason to Yoga, my life to the instructions
of the wise, and soul to Brahma, I shall happily rove through the world,
without attachment and without calamities of any kinds, so that thou
mayst not be able to plunge me again into such sorrows![531] If I
continue to be agitated by thee, O Desire, I shall necessarily be without
a path (by which to effect my deliverance). Thou, O Desire, art always
the progenitor of thirst, of grief, and of fatigue and toil. I think the
grief that one feels at the loss of wealth is very keen and far greater
than what one feels under any other circumstances. Kinsmen and friends
disregard him that has lost his wealth. With various kinds of humiliation
that number by thousands, there are many faults in property that are more
painful still. On the other hand, the very small happiness that resides
in wealth is mingled with pain and sorrow.[532] Robbers slay, in the
sight of all, the person that is possessed of wealth, or afflict him with
various kinds of severity, or always fill him with fear. At last, after a
long time, I have understood that the desire for wealth is fraught with
sorrow. Whatever the object, O Desire, upon which thou settes