from acts fraught with joy and sorrow proceeds the liability
to birth and death.[738] In consequence of the obligation of birth, the
liability is incurred of a residence within the womb, due to the union of
vital seed and blood. That residence is defiled with excreta and urine
and phlegm, and always fouled with blood that is generated there.
Overwhelmed by thirst, the Chit-Soul becomes bound by wrath and the rest
that have been enumerated above. It seeks, however, to escape those
evils. In respect of this, women must be regarded as instruments which
set the stream of Creation agoing. By their nature, women are Kshetra,
and men are Kshetrajna in respect of attributes. For this reason, persons
of wisdom should not pursue women in especial (among other objects of the
world).[739] Indeed, women are like frightful mantra-powers. They stupefy
persons reft of wisdom. They are sunk in the attribute of Passion. They
are the eternal embodiment of the senses.[740] In consequence of the keen
desire that men entertain for women, off-spring proceed from them, due to
(the action of) the vital seed. As one casts off from one's body such
vermin as take their birth there but as are not on that account any part
of oneself, even so should one cast off those vermin of one's body that
are called children, who, though regarded as one's own, are not one's own
in reality. From the vital seed as from sweat (and other filth) creatures
spring from the body, influenced by the acts of previous lives or in the
course of nature. Therefore, one possessed of wisdom should feel no
regard for them.[741] The attribute of Passion rests on that of Darkness.
The attribute of Goodness, again, rests on that of Passion. Darkness
which is unmanifest overspreads itself on Knowledge, and causes the
phenomena of Intelligence and Consciousness.[742] That knowledge
possessing the attributes of Intelligence and Consciousness has been said
to be the seed of embodied Souls. That, again, which is the seed of such
knowledge is called the Jiva (or Chit-Soul).[743] In consequence of acts
and the virtue of time, the Soul goes through birth and repeated rounds
of rebirth. As in a dream the Soul sports as if invested with a body
which, of course, is due to the action of the mind, after the same
manner, it obtains in the mother's womb a body in consequence of
attributes and propensities having (past) acts for their origin. Whatever
senses while it is there, are awakened by past act