Creatures, O bull of Bharatas race,
whether mobile or immobile, have to repeatedly return to the world. The
wise alone escape. The diseases, mental and physical, to which mortals
are subject, whether visible or invisible, are spoken of as beasts of
prey by the wise. Men are always afflicted and impeded by them, O
Bharata! Then again, those fierce beasts of prey, represented by their
own acts in life, never cause any anxiety to them that are of little
intelligence. If any person, O monarch, somehow escapes from diseases,
Decrepitude, that destroyer of beauty, overwhelmshim afterwards. Plunged
in a slough by the objects of the different senses--sound and form and
taste and touch and scent--man remains there without anything to rescue
him thence. Meanwhile, the years, the seasons, the months, the
fortnights, the days, and the nights, coming one after another, gradually
despoil him of beauty and lessen the period allotted to him. These all
are messengers of death. They, however, that are of little understanding
know them not to be such. The wise say that all creatures are governed by
the Ordainer through their acts. The body of a creature is called the
car. The living principle is the driver of (that car). The senses are
said to be steeds. Our acts and the understanding are the traces. He who
followeth after those running steeds has to come repeatedly to this world
in a round of rebirths. He, however, who, being self-restrained restrains
them by his understanding hath not to come back.
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