Water is the medicine for indigestion; it is invigorating when the food that is eaten is well digested; it is like nectar when drunk in the middle of a dinner; and it is like poison when taken at the end of a meal. |
We should always deal cautiously with fire, water, women, foolish people, serpents, and members of a royal family; for they may, when the occasion presents itself, at once bring about our death. |
We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment. |
We should not grieve when we must inevitably part company from our dear ones. |
We should secure and keep the following: the blessings of meritorious deeds, wealth, grain, the words of the spiritual master, and rare medicines. Otherwise life becomes impossible. |
Wealth, a friend, a wife, and a kingdom may be regained; but this body when lost may never be acquired again. |
What good can the scriptures do to a man who has no sense of his own? Of what use is as mirror to a blind man? |
What good is a cow that neither gives milk nor conceives? Similarly, what is the value of the birth of a son if he becomes neither learned nor a pure devotee of the Lord? |
What is it that escapes the observation of poets? What is that act women are incapable of doing? What will drunken people not prate? What will not a crow eat? |
What is the use of having many sons if they cause grief and vexation? |
What is there to be enjoyed in the world of Lord Indra for one whose wife is loving and virtuous, who possesses wealth, who has a well-behaved son endowed with good qualities, and who has a grandchildren born of his children? |
What is too heavy for the strong and what place is too distant for those who put forth effort? |
What vice could be worse than covetousness? What is more sinful than slander? For one who is truthful, what need is there for austerity? For one who has a clean heart, what is the need for pilgrimage? |
When one is consumed by the sorrows of life, three things give him relief: offspring, a wife, and the company of the Lord's devotees. |
Who is there who has not been overcome by the ravages of time? What beggar has attained glory? Who has become happy by contracting the vices of the wicked? |