CHAPTER VI. Description of Disaffection and Disgust to the World.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. It may be possible for us, to pierce the frontal bone even of the furious Airávata elephant of Indra in war; but it is too hard for any body, to repress the aberrant senses within their proper bounds.
41. It is reckoned as the greatest victory, that may be won by the valour, magnanimity, and fortitude of great men, if they can but conquer the unconquerable organs of sense, which makes the utmost glory of the great (or which redounds with the greatest to the great).
42. So long as a man is not flung and carried about as a light and trifling straw, by the irresistible force of his sensual appetites, he is said to have attained to the perfection and excellence of the deities of heaven.
43. I account men of well governed senses and those of great fortitude, to be truly men in their sense, or else all other men of ungoverned minds, are mere moving machines of the flesh and bones that compose their bodies.
44. O Sage! I think I can overcome all things, if I can but reduce the force of the five external organs of sense, which form the battalion under the command of the mind (and is led against the province of the soul).
45. Unless you can heal your sensual appetites, which forms the great malady of the mind, by the prescriptions of your reason, you cannot get rid of them by any medicine or mantra, or by holy pilgrimage or any other remedy. (The subjection of the senses, is the first step to holiness).
46. I am led to great distress by the joint force of my senses, as a lonely traveller is waylaid in his journey by a gang of robbers. (It may be possible to withstand any particular appetite but not all at once).
47. The organs of sense are as dirty canals of the body, with their stagnate and foul watery matter, they are filled with noxious and hairy moss, and emit a malarious stink.
48. The senses seem to me as so many deep and dark forests, covered with impervious snows, and full of terrors that render them impassable to travellers.
49. The organs of the outward senses resemble the stalks of lotuses, growing upon the dirt of the body with holes in them, but without any visible thread therein. They are knotty on the outside, and without any sensibility of their own; (except what is supplied to them by the soul).
50. Our sensualities are as so many seas with their briny waters, and huge billows dashing on every side; they abound with various gems and pearls, but are full of horrible whales and sharks at the same time.
51. Sensual pleasure brings on the untimely death of the sensualist, and causes the grief and sadness of his friends there-in; it makes others to take pity on his state, and mourn at his fate, which conducts him to repeated transmigrations only.
52. The senses are as vast and unlimited wilderness to men, which prove friendly to the wise, and inimical to the unwise.
53. The sphere of the senses is as dark as that of the clouded sky, where the black clouds of distress are continually growling, and the lightnings of joy are incessantly flashing with their transient glare.
54. The organs of sense are as subterranean cells or mounds of mud upon earth; these are resorted to by inferior animals, but shunned by superior and intelligent beings.
55. They are like hidden caves on earth overspread with thorns and brambles, and inbred with venomous snakes, in which the unwary fall to be smitten and bitten to death.
56. All sensualities are as savage Rákshasas or cannibals, that rove and revel about in their venturous excursions in the darkness of night; and glut themselves with human victims.
57. Our organs of sense are as dry sticks, all hollow and pithless in the inside; they are crooked and full of joints all along, and fit only as fuel for fire.
58. The bodily organs are the instruments of vice, and are as pits and thickets on our way; they are fitted with dirt within, like the notes of canes and reeds that are full of useless stuff.
59. The organic limbs and members are the implements of action, and the apparatus for producing an infinite variety of works. They are like the potter’s wheels, turning and whirling with their mud, in order to produce the fragile pottery of clay.
60. Thus Sir, I am plunged in the dangerous sea of my sensual appetites, and you alone are able to raise me out of it by your kindness to me; because they say, that holy saints only are victorious over their senses in this world, and it is their society only that removes the griefs of mankind, and saves them from the perilous sea of sensuality.