The Great Epic of the Bhārata dynasty 12.205.1

12.205.1

gururuvāca |
pravṛttilakṣaṇo dharmo yathāyamupapadyate |
teṣāṃ vijñānaniṣṭhānāmanyattattvaṃ na rocate || 1 ||

"Bhishma said, 'Persons engaged in the practice of acts regard the practice of acts highly. Similarly, those that are devoted to Knowledge do not regard anything other than Knowledge. Persons fully conversant with the Vedas and depending upon the utterances contained in them, are rare. They that are more intelligent desire the path of abstention from acts as the better of the two, viz., heaven and emancipation. Abstention from acts is observed by those that are possessed of great wisdom. That conduct, therefore, is laudable. The intelligence which urges to abstention from acts, is that by which one attains to Emancipation. Possessed of body, a person, through folly, and endued with wrath and cupidity and all the propensities born of Passion and Darkness, becomes attached to all earthly objects. One, therefore, who desires to destroy one's connection with the body, should never indulge in any impure act. On the other hand, one should create by one's acts a path for attaining to emancipation, without wishing for regions of felicity (in the next world). As gold, when united with iron, loses its purity and fails to shine, even so Knowledge, when existing with attachment to earthly objects and such other faults, fails to put forth its splendour. He who, influenced by cupidity and following the dictates of desire and wrath, practises unrighteousness, transgressing the path of righteousness, meets with complete destruction. One who is desirous of benefiting oneself should never follow, with excess of attachments, earthly possessions represented by the objects of the senses. If one does it, wrath and joy--and sorrow arise from one another (and make one miserable). When every one's body is made up of the five original elements as also of the three attributes of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness, whom shall one adore and whom shall one blame with what words? Only they that are fools become attached to the objects of the senses. In consequence of folly they do not know that their bodies are only modifications.