CHAPTER XX. On Good Conduct.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
It is the society of the respectable and reasoning with them, that leads most efficiently to the improvement of the understanding, and next to the making of a great man, with all the characteristics of greatness.
2. Whatever man excels in any quality here, he becomes distinguished by it: therefore learn it from him, and improve your understanding by the same.
3. True greatness consists in quietness and other virtues, without a knowledge of which it is impossible, O Ráma! to be successful in anything.
4. Learning produces quiet and other qualities, and increases the virtues of good people; all which are praised by their good effects on the mind, as the rain is hailed for its growing the new sprouts of plants.
5. The qualities of quietude and other virtues serve to increase the best knowledge (of men); as sacrifice with rice serves to produce felicitous rains for the harvest.
6. As learning produces the qualities of quiet and the like, so do these qualities give rise to learning; thus they serve to grow each other, as the lake and lotuses contribute to their mutual benefit (excellence).
7. Learning is produced by right conduct as good conduct results from learning; thus wisdom and morality are natural helps to one another.
8. The intelligent man who is possessed of quietude, meekness and good conduct, should practise wisdom, and follow the ways of good people.
9. Unless one should bring to practice his wisdom and good conduct in an equal degree, he will never be successful in either of them.
10. Both of these should be conjoined together like the song united with percussion, as it is done by the husbandman and his wife in sowing the seeds and driving away the (seed-picking) birds from their fields of grain.
11. It is by practice of wisdom and right conduct (as causes of one another), that good people are enabled to acquire both of them in an equal degree.
12. I have already expounded to you, O Ráma, the rule of good conduct, and will now explain to you fully the way of gaining learning.
13. Learning conduces to renown, long life and to the acquisition of the object of your exertion; therefore should the intelligent learn the good sciences from those who have studied and mastered them.
14. By hearing (these lectures) with a clear understanding, you will surely attain the state of perfection, as dirty water is purified by infusion of the Kata fruits.
15. The sage who has known the knowable, has his mind drawn insensibly to the blissful state; and that highest state of unbounded felicity being once known and felt (in the mind), it is hard to loose its impression at any time.