What can the penance of such
a man do? What can his sacrifices bring about? What cart be achieved by
his body? The gods know him for a Brahmana who has cast off his upper
garment, who sleeps on the bare ground, who makes his arm a pillow, and
whose heart is possessed of tranquillity.[1246] That person who, devoted
to contemplation, singly enjoys all the happiness that wedded couples
enjoy, and who turns not his attention to the joys and griefs of others,
should be known for a Brahmana.[1247] That man who rightly understands
all this as it exists in reality and its multiform transformations, and
who knows what the end is of all created objects, is known by the gods
for a Brahmana.[1248] One who hath no fear from any creature and from
whom no creature hath any fear and who constitutes himself the soul of
all creatures, should be known for a Brahmana. Without having acquired
purity of heart which is the true result of all pious acts such as gifts
and sacrifices, men of foolish understandings do not succeed in obtaining
a knowledge of what is needed in making one a Brahmana even when
explained by preceptors. Destitute of a knowledge of all this, these men
desire fruits of a different kind, viz., heaven and its joys.[1249]
Unable to practise even a small part of that good conduct which has come
down from remote times, which is eternal, which is characterised by
certitude, which enters as a thread in all our duties, and by adopting
which men of knowledge belonging to all the modes of life convert their
respective duties and penances into terrible weapons for destroying the
ignorance and evils of worldliness, men of foolish understandings regard
acts that are productive of visible fruits, that are fraught with the
highest puissance, and that are deathless, as fruitless after all and as
deviations (from the proper course) not sanctioned by the scriptures.
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