The study of the
Vedas, and of their branches, according to the well-known rules, and all
enquiries and pursuits having for their sake the acquisition of
knowledge,--these, without doubt, are excellent. One desirous of
achieving what is excellent should never enjoy sound and form and taste
and touch and scent, to excess and should not enjoy them for their sake
alone. Wandering in the night, sleep during the day, indulgence in
idleness, roguery, arrogance, excessive indulgence and total abstention
from all indulgence in objects of the senses, should be relinquished by
one desirous of achieving what is excellent.[1467] One should not seek
self-elevation by depreciating others. Indeed, one should, by one's
merits alone, seek distinction over persons that are distinguished but
never over those that are inferior. Men really destitute of merit and
filled with a sense of self-admiration depreciate men of real merit, by
asserting their own virtues and affluence. Swelling with a sense of their
own importance, these men, when none interferes with them (for bringing
them to a right sense of what they are), regard themselves to be superior
to men of real distinction. One possessed of real wisdom and endued with
real merits, acquires great fame by abstaining from speaking ill of
others and from indulging in self-praise. Flowers shed their pure and
sweet fragrance without trumpeting forth their own excellence. Similarly,
the effulgent Sun scatters his splendours in the firmament in perfect
silence.
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