Shatakatraya 3

English (machine translation) 3

Language: English

3.1

The Century of Renunciation
of Bhartṛhari

Resplendent with a flickering crest-flame, adorned on his crown with the lovely crescent moon,
having burnt in sport the fluttering moth of Kāma, blazing before the state of highest bliss,
dispersing the surging mass of darkness of boundless delusion within,
the lamp of knowledge, Hara, reigns supreme in the pure abode of the yogins' hearts.

3.2

I have roamed through lands rough with many an impassable fortress, and gained no fruit;
abandoning fitting pride of birth and family, I have rendered fruitless service;
cast out of self-respect, I have fed in others' houses in anxious fear, like a crow;
and yet, O craving, harbinger of wicked deeds, you swell! Even now you are not satisfied!

3.3

The surface of the earth was dug up in the hope of treasure; the ores of mountains were smelted;
the lord of rivers was crossed; kings were flattered with great effort;
nights were spent in the cremation ground with a mind intent on reciting spells;
yet not even a broken cowrie have I obtained! O craving, have your fill!

3.4

The harsh words of villains were somehow endured by those devoted to pleasing them;
choking back tears within, hollow smiles were forced with an empty mind;
folded hands were offered even to those whose wits were dulled by the arrogance of wealth;
O hope, you vain hope, why do you make me dance still further?

3.5

For the sake of these vital breaths, unstable as drops of water on a lotus leaf,
what was not undertaken by us whose discernment had departed?
For before the rich, whose minds are senseless with the intoxication of wealth,
we even committed the shameless crime of recounting our own virtues!

3.6

Wrongs were borne, but not through patience; the pleasure fitting for home was abandoned, but not out of contentment;
the affliction of unbearable cold, heat, and wind was endured, but ascetic austerity was not performed;
wealth was meditated upon day and night with restrained breaths, but not the feet of Śambhu:
we performed the very deeds that sages perform, yet were cheated of their fruits!

3.7

Sensual pleasures have not been enjoyed—we alone have been consumed;
ascetic austerity has not been performed—we alone have been scorched;
time has not passed—we alone have passed away;
craving has not aged—we alone have grown old.

3.8

The face is covered with wrinkles; the head is marked with grey hair;
the limbs grow slack; craving alone grows youthful!
When discernment blossoms and produces calm, thirst subsides;
yet in the heights of attachment, fully matured, it spreads all the more—
that thirst in which, abject with the torment of swallowing ruined fortunes,
even the lord of the gods becomes a vessel of craving.

3.9

Desire for sensual pleasures has ceased; the high regard of men has slipped away;
equals and friends, dear as life itself, have suddenly gone to heaven;
one rises slowly with a cane, and both eyes are blocked by thick darkness:
alas! Yet this foolish body trembles in terror of death's approach!

3.10

Hope is a river whose waters are fantasies, churned with waves of craving,
infested with the crocodiles of passion, with doubt as its birds, uprooting the tree of fortitude;
impassable and exceedingly deep with whirlpools of delusion, having towering banks of anxiety:
having reached its opposite shore, masters among yogins rejoice, purely free from toil.

3.11

I see no good outcome born of this cycle of worldly existence;
when I reflect on it, the ripening of merits causes me dread.
For sense objects, enjoyed for a long time through great floods of merit,
turn out only to bring ruin, as it were, upon the pleasure-seeker.

3.12

Sense objects must inevitably depart, even after staying for a very long time;
what difference is there in separation, that man does not abandon them himself?
When they depart on their own, they cause incomparable agony to the mind;
but when given up voluntarily, they produce endless bliss of tranquility.

3.13

Those whose minds are spotless through the discernment of knowledge of Brahman do what is truly difficult,
in that, utterly detached, they cast aside riches even while possessing enjoyment of them;
whereas we are unable to abandon what was never obtained in the past, nor now, nor with any firm assurance of future gain—
nothing more than the mere grasping of desires!

3.14

Blessed are those dwelling in mountain caves, meditating on the Supreme Light,
whose tears of joy birds drink without fear, resting in their laps;
while our life merely wastes away as we take pleasure in the amusement of frolicking
in pleasure-gardens, ponds, and palaces fashioned by mere fantasies.

3.15

For food, only a few begged alms, and that too dry and eaten once a day;
for a bed, the bare ground; for retinue, one's own body alone;
for clothing, a ragged cloak made of a hundred tattered shreds;
alas, alas! Even so, sense objects do not abandon us!

3.16

Breasts are knots of flesh, yet compared to golden jars;
the face is a dwelling for phlegm, yet likened to the moon;
hips, wet with trickling urine, are said to rival the brow of an elephant prince:
again and again, a despicable form is exalted by the eloquence of poets!

3.17

Alone among the impassioned shines Hara, who took half of his beloved's body;
among the dispassionate, there is none greater than he who has renounced attachment to women;
the rest of humanity, bewildered by the poison of the snake of irresistible Smara's arrow,
mocked by desire, are neither able to enjoy sense objects nor to renounce them.

3.18

Not knowing its burning power, let the moth fall into the blazing fire;
out of ignorance, let the fish swallow the meat caught on the hook;
but we, though knowing full well, do not cast off these sense desires tangled in a web of perils—
alas, how inscrutable is the power of delusion!

3.19

When the mouth is parched with thirst, one drinks cool, sweet water; / suffering from hunger, one gulps down boiled rice mixed with meat and other foods; / when the fire of desire blazes up, one clasps one's wife most tightly. / People perversely take the remedy for an ailment to be happiness.

3.20

A towering mansion, sons esteemed by the virtuous, vast wealth beyond measure, / an auspicious beloved, and fresh youth—so thinking, / people, blinded by ignorance, regard the world as imperishable and enter the prison-house of the cycle of worldly existence; / but the fortunate person, seeing all of it to be frail and fleeting, renounces.

3.21

If one's wretched wife were not to be seen, distressed without food, / her worn garment tugged continually by pitiable, hungry, crying children / with forlorn faces, / what high-minded man would say 'Give!' for the sake of his own wretched belly, / with faltering throat and choked, dying syllables out of fear that his begging would be refused?

3.22

Skilled at sundering the cherished knot of great self-respect, / brilliant moonlight that expands the lotus-cluster of immense virtues, / an axe to the sprawling thicket of the creeper of flourishing shame— / this wretched, insatiable belly brings about humiliation.

3.23

In a sacred village or a great forest, taking a begging-bowl whose rim is covered with a white cloth, / in neighborhoods smoky with the oblations to the fire offered by righteous twice-born men, / it is better for a starving, proud man, sustained by his breath of life, / to enter door after door to fill the cave of his belly, but never to live wretchedly day after day among his peers.

3.24

Have the regions of the Himalayas, cool with the fine spray of Gaṅgā's waves, / with their lovely stone terraces frequented by Vidyādharas, / gone to dissolution, / that men take delight in humiliating morsels given by others?

3.25

Have roots vanished from the mountain caves, or waterfalls from the peaks? / Have the branches of trees, shedding sweet fluid and clad in bark, been destroyed, / that one looks upon the faces of wicked men utterly stripped of modesty, / their creeper-like brows dancing under the wind of pride from a little wealth acquired with pain?

3.26

Live now a pleasant life on holy roots and fruits; / a bed on the ground with generous fresh shoots—arise, let us go to the forest, / where not even the name is ever heard of petty men, their minds blinded by lack of discernment, / wealthy lords whose speech is always agitated by the disease of wealth.

3.27

Fruit of the trees can be had at will without distress in every forest; / in every place there is cool, sweet water from holy rivers; / a soft-touching bed made of tender leaves from graceful creepers— / yet wretched men still endure torment at the doors of the rich.

3.28

Seated on a bed of rock in a mountain cave when my meditation breaks, / may I recall with an inner, flashing smile the days of those / who stand before wealthy lords sharing the pain of begging, / and of those who embrace pettiness because their minds are satisfied with sense objects.

3.29

Those who are constantly delighted with contentment do not have their joy broken; / as for others whose minds are entangled in greed for wealth, their craving is never destroyed. / Thus, for whose sake and whence did the Creator fashion Meru as a pinnacle of wealth, / whose glory of gold ends only in itself? It does not please me.

3.30

Free from subservience, bringing unequaled joy, severing fear on every side, / crushing spiteful malice, pride, and arrogance, destroying the flood of sorrows, / easily gained everywhere every day without effort, dear to the virtuous, purifying— / this unwaning, inexhaustible treasury, the free kitchen of Śambhu, the lords of yogins proclaim.

3.31

In sensual pleasure there is fear of disease; in high birth, fear of decline; in wealth, fear of kings; / in honor, fear of humiliation; in strength, fear of enemies; in beauty, fear of old age; / in authoritative treatises, fear of disputants; in virtue, fear of the wicked; in the body, fear of Death: / everything in this world of mortals is fraught with fear; renunciation alone is freedom from fear.

3.32

Birth is overtaken by death, and radiant youth by old age; / contentment by the desire for wealth; the peace of serenity by the seductive charms of mature women; / virtues by envious people; forest tracts by beasts of prey; kings by wicked persons; / and even fortunes are destroyed by instability. What, indeed, has not been devoured by something?

3.33

A person's health is uprooted by hundreds of diverse physical and mental afflictions; / where Fortune falls, calamities enter as if through open doors. / Death inevitably and quickly claims whatever is born, leaving it helpless. / What, then, has been created firm and stable by that unchecked Creator?

3.34

Sensual pleasures are unsteady like the breaking of high waves; life ends in a moment; / the joy of youth lasts but a few days, its radiance abiding in beloved women. / Knowing this whole cycle of worldly existence to be entirely without substance, wise teachers, / with minds inclined toward compassion for the world, apply your effort!

3.35

Sensual pleasures are as flicker-brief as lightning flashing amid a bank of clouds; / life is transient like water resting on a lotus leaf shaken by the wind; / the sports of youth and their yearnings are fleeting for embodied beings. Realizing this at once, / wise men, fix your mind on yoga, which easily yields the attainment of fortitude and deep absorption!

3.36

Life is as restless as a wave; the splendor of youth lasts but a few days; / riches are as transient as fleeting thoughts; the multitudes of sensual pleasures are like the flashes of lightning in the rainy season; / even the close embrace around the neck bestowed by beloved women does not endure. / Therefore, fix your minds on Brahman to cross to the far shore of the ocean of worldly existence!

3.37

One abides in the womb in misery, with body confined amidst filth; / in youth, sensual enjoyment is marred by the distress of separation from one's beloved; / old age, an abode of mocking laughter and contempt from fair-eyed women, is an unmitigated sorrow. / Ah, mortals, say if there is even the slightest happiness in the cycle of worldly existence!

3.38

Old age stands threatening like a tigress; / diseases strike the body like enemies; / life drains away like water from a broken jar; / and yet people act against their own true interest—how strange!

3.39

Sensual pleasures are transient in nature and of many kinds, and from them alone comes this worldly existence; / then for the sake of what, O people, do you wander about here? Enough with these exertions! / Let the mind, purified by the calming of hundreds of snares of longing, be concentrated / in its own abode, beyond the sway of desire's arising, if our words are to be trusted.
Some are blessed, my friend, whose entanglements in the bonds of worldly existence are broken, / who dwell within the forest, their inner hearts free of the blazing poison of sense objects, / who pass the night delightful with the expansive sky brightened by the autumn moonlight, / taking refuge only in contemplation of the mass of their good deeds.

3.40

Stationed where one regards the hosts of gods, Brahmā, Indra, and the rest, as specks of grass, / through the taste of which the splendors of sovereignty over the three worlds and the like lose their flavor— / that is a certain sensual pleasure, supreme, single, and ever-risen, which unfolds; / O virtuous person, do not take delight in any other sensual pleasure that is fleeting in an instant!

3.41

That charming city, that great king, and that circle of vassal lords, / that assembly of cultured men at his side, and those women with faces like the orb of the moon, / that haughty throng of princes, those bards, and those stories: / homage to that Time under whose sway all has passed into the path of memory!

3.42

Where there were many in a certain house, there only one now remains; / and where there was one, later there are many, and at the end not even one. / Tossing night and day in this manner like two dice, / skilled Time plays on the board of the world with living beings as his pieces.

3.43

With the comings and goings of the sun, day by day life wastes away; / even time is not noticed amid activities burdensome with the weight of manifold affairs. / Seeing birth, old age, misfortune, and death, terror does not arise; / having drunk the wine of heedlessness composed of delusion, the world has gone mad.

3.44

Thinking 'It is that very night again, that very same day,' people run in vain, / energetic and secretly engaged in various undertakings just as before; / through affairs whose objects have become mere repetition in this manner, / we are tormented by the cycle of worldly existence—alas, out of delusion we feel no shame!

3.45

The abode of the Lord was not duly meditated upon to cut through the cycle of worldly existence, / nor was righteousness earned, capable of breaking open the doors to heaven; / the pair of plump breasts and thighs of a woman was not embraced even in a dream: / we were merely axes for cutting down the forest of our mother's youth.

3.46

Learning suitable for the disciplined, which subdues throngs of opponents, was not studied; / fame was not raised to heaven by sword-tips cleaving the frontal lobes of elephants; / the nectar of a beloved's tender sprout-like lower lip was not drunk at moonrise: / youth has passed away entirely in vain, alas, like a lamp in an empty house.

3.47

Spotless learning was not acquired, nor was wealth amassed; / nor was service to parents performed with a focused mind; / beloved women with fluttering, wide eyes were not embraced even in a dream: / this time is passed, out of greed for morsels from others, like crows.

3.48

Those from whom we were born have indeed long departed; / those with whom we grew up have also been consigned to the realm of memory; / now we, facing an imminent fall every day, / have reached an identical state with trees on the sandy bank of a river.

3.49

The lifespan allotted to men is one hundred years; half of that is spent in the night; / of the remaining half, another half is spent in childhood and old age; / the rest, accompanied by disease, bereavement, and sorrow, is passed in servitude and the like. / When life is more unsteady than a ripple of water, how can there be happiness for living beings?

3.50

A child for a moment, for a moment a youth relishing desire, / for a moment destitute of wealth, and for a moment abundant in splendor, / with limbs worn out by old age, his body adorned with wrinkles like an actor, / man enters the curtain of the city of Yama at the end of the cycle of worldly existence.

3.51

You are a king; we too are exalted in pride of wisdom gained from serving our teacher. / You are renowned for your riches; poets spread our renown in every direction. / Thus there is a very great distance between us both, rich in pride: / if you turn your back on us, we too are completely indifferent.

3.52

You rule over wealth, and we rule over words to the extent of their meaning; / you are a hero, and our skill in subduing the arrogance of opponents is inexhaustible; / the rich serve you, while those desirous of hearing [words] to dispel the mind's impurities serve me: / if you have no regard for me, O king, I have no regard for you whatsoever.

3.53

We here are satisfied with bark garments, and you with fine silk; / our satisfaction here is equal, the distinction makes no difference. / But let him be poor whose craving is vast; / when the mind is satisfied, who is wealthy and who is poor?

3.54

Fruit is enough for food, sweet water for drinking, / the ground too for sleeping, and bark garments for clothing; / I cannot bring myself to approve the insolence of wicked persons / whose senses are all bewildered by drinking the intoxicating honey of fresh wealth.

3.55

Let us eat alms, let us wear the quarters of the sky as our garment, / let us sleep upon the surface of the earth; what should we do with rulers?

3.56

We are not actors, nor rogues, nor singers, nor skilled in debates unfit for an assembly, / nor are we women bowed by the weight of breasts: who are we here to see the king?

3.57

This world was created in the past by broad-minded rulers, / maintained by others, and given away by still others, conquering it like a straw; / indeed, other steadfast men here enjoy fourteen worlds: / what is this fever of pride in men over the lordship of a few cities?

3.58

Over this earth, which has not been unenjoyed by hundreds of kings even for a moment, / what great pride can there possibly be for kings upon gaining it? / Fools, being rulers over a fraction of its fraction, a mere particle of its portion, / actually feel delight when they ought to feel sorrow!

3.59

This entire lump of clay encircled by the streak of water is indeed an atom; / having divided it into portions through hundreds of battles, hosts of kings enjoy it. / They may give, or what else can these wretched, utterly impoverished people give? / Fie, fie upon those basest of men who crave even tiny grains of wealth from them!

3.60

He alone was someone truly born, whose white skull / was placed aloft by the foe of Madana upon his head as an ornament. / Now, among men bowed before by a few folk / whose minds are bent only on saving their lives, what is this burden of feverish, incomparable pride?

3.61

O heart, why do you enter upon distress, striving daily in many ways / to please the minds of others to win their favor? / When you are tranquil within, a solitary resolve, / like a wish-fulfilling gem rising of itself, does it not satisfy your every desire? // While there is indeed the river of the three worlds caressing Hara's head, / providing a good livelihood through bark garments and sweet fruits from banyan boughs, / what wise man would look upon the face of wretched people, / suffering extreme agony from the disease born of the fever of misfortune, / unless he felt compassion for his own distressed family?

3.62

Why wander in vain, O mind? Rest somewhere! / What happens of itself happens as it must; it cannot be otherwise. / Neither remembering the past nor planning for the future, / I experience the sensual pleasures that arrive unforeseen.

3.63

Turn back from this exhausting thicket of sense objects; take refuge instantly / in the path of highest good, capable of quelling all sorrow. / Attain unity with your own Self; abandon your restless, surging movement; / do not indulge again in fleeting delight in worldly existence; O mind, be serene now!

3.64

Wipe away delusion; cultivate devotion toward him who wears the crescent moon as a crest jewel; / O mind, embrace attachment to the banks of the celestial river. / For what trust can there be in waves and bubbles, in flashes of lightning, in riches, / in tips of flames, in serpents, or in the rushes of rivers?

3.65

O mind, do not dwell even once with yearning on this transient fortune, / a courtesan whose trade is strolling in the cottage of a king's furrowed brow. / Clad in ragged cloaks, having entered house doorways, / let us await alms fallen into our hand-bowls in the street rows of Vārāṇasī.

3.66

Song before you, charming poets from the south on both flanks, / and behind you the jingle of playful bracelets on fan-bearing maidens— / if you have this, then indulge your passion for savoring the relish of worldly existence; / but if not, O mind, plunge swiftly into unconditioned samādhi!

3.67

Fortunes yielding all desires have been obtained—what then? / One's foot has been planted upon the heads of enemies—what then? / Suitors have been enriched with wealth—what then? / The bodies of mortals have endured for an eon—what then?

3.68

Devotion to Śiva, fear of death and birth dwelling in the heart, / no affection for relatives, no passions born of love, / forest margins free of faults for company, / and renunciation: what else is to be sought beyond this?

3.69

Therefore contemplate that Brahman, endless, ageless, supreme, and radiant; / what is the use of these false mental constructs, / of which these enjoyments, such as sovereignty over the world, / prized by wretched folk, are mere by-products?

3.70

You enter the netherworld, you leap across the sky, / you wander over the circle of the quarters through fickleness, O mind! / Why do you not, even by chance, turn to that spotless Brahman / beneficial to the Self, through which you might attain bliss?

3.71

What use are the Vedas, the smṛtis, the readings of the Purāṇas, or extensive treatises, / and the illusions of ritual acts that yield dwelling in a hut in the village of heaven? / Leaving aside that which alone is the cosmic fire destroying the mass of worldly suffering— / the entering into the state of the Self's own bliss—all the rest is mere petty trade! // 'This is not your time; it is private now; the master is sleeping; if you remain, / he will look and get angry'—such words are spoken at their doors; / O mind, leaving them behind, go to the abode of the Lord of the universe, / free from harshness and cruel words of doorkeepers, bestowing boundless peace!

3.72

Since even glorious Mount Meru falls, engulfed by the fires at the end of an eon, / and oceans dry up, though home to multitudes of makaras and sea-monsters, / and the earth goes to ruin, even held by the feet of mountains, / what can be said of the body, unsteady as the tip of a young elephant's ear?

3.73

The body is stooped, the gait has faltered, the row of teeth has fallen out, / eyesight is failing, deafness increases, and saliva trickles from the mouth; / kinfolk heed not one's word, one's wife offers no care, / and alas, for a man advanced in age, even his son acts like an enemy!

3.74

Seeing the white color of the hair on his head, / the sign of age's humiliation, / young women shun that man from afar, / as though he were an outcaste's well hung with hundreds of bones.

3.75

As long as this body is healthy and free from illness, as long as old age is distant, / as long as the senses retain unimpaired power, and as long as life is not exhausted, / so long alone should a wise man make great exertion for the highest good of the Self; / for what kind of effort is digging a well when the house is already in flames?

3.76

Shall we dwell along the river of the gods, practicing ascetic austerity as virtuous men? / Or shall we court with reverence wives noble in virtues? / Or shall we drink the floods of treatises and the ambrosial nectar of diverse poems? / When life lasts but a few winks of an eye, we know not what to do!

3.77

These kings are hard to please, their minds as fickle as horses, / while we have lofty desires, our minds fixed on great reward; / old age steals the body, and death snatches this beloved life: / O friend, there is no other good for a wise man in this world except ascetic austerity.

3.78

When honor has withered, wealth is ruined, suitors have departed empty-handed, / kinsmen have dwindled, servants have left, and youth has slowly vanished, / this alone is fitting for the wise: to dwell somewhere in an arbor / on the slopes of caves of a great mountain whose crags are purified by the waters of the daughter of Jahnu.

3.79

Charming are the rays of the moon, charming is the grassy ground in the heart of the forest, / charming is the delight found in the company of the virtuous, charming are tales in poetry, / charming is the beloved's face trembling with teardrops brought on by feigned anger; / everything is charming, but once the mind has grasped impermanence, nothing is charming anymore.

3.80

Is not a palace roof delightful for dwelling? Is not singing and the like pleasant to hear?
Or is not union with a beloved as dear as life itself a source of supreme delight?
Yet, seeing that everything is fleeting as the shadow of a lamp flame
flickering in the wind made by the flutter of a moth's wings, the virtuous have departed for the forest.

3.81

Though searching this threefold world throughout worldly existence, my friends, no such person
has ever entered our field of vision or the range of our ears,
who can play the role of a tethering post for restraint to the inner elephant of the mind,
which is drunk with deep and hidden vanity, a wild elephant among sense objects.

3.82

This wandering at will, food obtained without abasement,
fellowship with noble men, knowledge whose sole fruit is the practice of tranquility,
and the mind sluggish in its outward movements—reflecting for a long time,
I know not from what generous ascetic austerity this ripening has come about.

3.83

Desires are indeed worn out in the heart, and that youth is gone;
alas, talents in one's limbs have proved barren of fruit without appreciative connoisseurs;
what is right to do? Swiftly approaches powerful Time, the merciless ender.
Ah, I know: there is no refuge except the pair of feet of the Slayer of Madana.

3.84

Whether in Maheśvara, the sovereign of the worlds,
or in Janārdana, the inner self of the world,
I perceive no difference in essence;
yet my devotion rests in him who bears the crescent moon on his crest.

3.85

When, seated comfortably on some sandbank of the river of heaven
whitened by the radiant, full moonlight during nights when darkness is stilled,
agitated by the expanse of worldly existence, crying out aloud, 'Śiva, Śiva, Śiva!',
shall we attain a state overwhelmed by deep inner tears?

3_2

Mahādeva is our god; this river too is the river of the gods;
a cave alone is our house, and the directions themselves are our clothes;
Time is our friend, and this vow is a vow free from wretchedness;
how much more shall we say? Let a banyan branch be our beloved!

3.86

Having given away all our possessions, our hearts filled with fresh compassion,
remembering the adverse turns of fate in the cycle of worldly existence,
we shall pass the nights, lit by the rays of the ripe autumn moon,
in a sacred forest, with sole refuge in meditating on Hara's feet.

3.87

When, living in Vārāṇasī on the bank of the immortal river,
wearing a loincloth, placing folded hands upon my head,
crying aloud, 'O Lord of Gaurī! Destroyer of Tripura! Śambhu! Three-eyed one! Have mercy!',
shall I pass the days as if they were a mere moment?

3_3

A variety of foods is in the gardens; ascetic austerity is fiercely intense;
a loincloth for covering is fine clothing, and boundless begging for alms is decoration;
and approaching death, which arises there, is equal to an auspicious blessing—
alas, abandoning that Kāśī, why do the wise dwell anywhere else?

3.88

Having bathed in the waters of the Gaṅgā, having worshiped you, O All-pervading Lord, with pure flowers and fruits,
having fixed meditation on the object of meditation at the foot of a rock-couch in a mountain cave,
delighting in the self, eating wild fruits, devoted to the words of the guru—by your grace, O Enemy of Smara,
when shall I be released from the sorrow born of serving a man whose hands and feet are just like mine?

3.89

Solitary, free from desire, peaceful, my hand for a bowl, clad in the directions—
when, O Śambhu, will I be able to uproot karma entirely?

3.90

For those using their hands as bowls, content with naturally pure alms,
sitting anywhere, looking upon the universe again and again as mere straw,
even without abandoning the body, an ineffable nectar touching the awareness of unbroken supreme bliss,
easily attained by the grace of Śiva, will belong to yogins.

3.91

A loincloth tattered into a hundred rags, a ragged cloak just the same,
freedom from anxiety, food obtained as alms without expectation, sleep in a cremation ground or forest,
wandering uncurbed at one's own will, the inner mind forever tranquil,
and steadfastness in the great festival of yoga—if this is attained, what need of rule over the three worlds?

3.92

Is the whole universe, a mere bubble, an object of greed for the wise man?
Certainly the ocean is not agitated by the darting of a tiny fish.

3.93

Mother Lakṣmī, seek someone else! Do not long for me;
those eager for sensual pleasures are in your power; what are you to those free from desire?
Now, by means of items of alms purified in bowls
fashioned from freshly stitched palāśa leaves, we seek our livelihood.

3.94

The earth is a vast bed, the creeper-like arm an ample pillow,
the sky a canopy, and this favorable breeze a fan;
the autumn moon is a lamp; rejoicing in the company of the lady Dispassion,
the sage sleeps happy and peaceful, like a king of boundless wealth.

3.95

Eating alms, free from association amidst people, his actions always self-controlled,
devoted to the path detached from taking and giving, an ascetic remains:
his ragged cloak obtained from worn-out clothes discarded on the road,
free from pride, devoid of egoism, his longing fixed solely on the enjoyment of the bliss of tranquility.

3.96

'Is he an outcaste? Or a twice-born? Or a Śūdra? Or an ascetic?
Or perhaps a master among yogins whose intellect is skilled in discernment of the truth?'
Addressed thus by people noisy with doubts and chattering that arise,
neither angry nor pleased in mind, the yogins go their own way along the path.

3.97

Food free from violence and obtained without effort—air—was created by the Creator for snakes;
beasts are content eating blades of grass, sleeping on the bare ground;
for men possessing an intellect capable of crossing the ocean of worldly existence, such a livelihood was made,
yet in chasing after that other [fortune], all their virtues continually come to an end.

3.98

Seated in the lotus posture on a rock of the Himalaya on the bank of the Gaṅgā,
entering into the sleep of yoga by the practice of meditation on Brahman—
will those blessed days ever be mine, when old deers,
without fear, scratch their bodies against my limbs?

3_4

A ragged cloak is worn out—what of it? Or a pure white garment of woven silk—what of it?
One has a single wife—what of it? Or is surrounded by great troops of horses and elephants—what of it?
Fine food is eaten—what of it? Or poor food at the end of the day—what of it?
Unless the radiant light within has crushed the fear of existence, or even if one has great power—what of it?

3.99

The cupped hand is a pure bowl, roaming alms are inexhaustible food,
the ten directions are an ample garment, the unshakable earth is an immense bed:
blessed are those whose hearts are satisfied by embracing detachment;
casting off the heap of miserable entanglements, they eradicate karma.
In comparison to that great dominion, even sovereignty over the three worlds is tasteless;
having attained that, take no pleasure in pleasures dependent on food, clothing, and honor.
There is only one supreme pleasure, ever-arisen in manifestation,
from whose taste all sense objects, even kingship over the three worlds, turn tasteless.

3.100

Mother Earth, Father Wind, Friend Fire, Good Kin Water,
Brother Space: to you this final salutation with folded hands is offered!
Through the boundless, shining, pure knowledge born of merit produced by association with you,
the power of all delusion is cast aside, and I dissolve into the Supreme Brahman.
Whose bed is a stone rock, home a mountain cave, clothing the bark of trees,
deer their companions, sustenance the tender fruits of trees,
whose customary drink is waterfall water, and whose woman for delight is learning—
them I consider supreme lords, if their hands are never folded in servitude at the head.

3.100_2

Whose father is fortitude, mother patience, and enduring wife peace,
whose true friend is truth, sister compassion, and brother restraint of mind,
whose bed is the surface of the earth, the directions their garment, and the nectar of knowledge their food—
tell me, friend, from what should fear come to a yogin who has such a family?

3.100_3

Whether toward a serpent or a pearl garland, a powerful enemy or a friend,
a jewel or a clod of earth, a bed of flowers or a slab of stone,
a blade of grass or a woman: may my days pass with an even gaze,
repeating "Śiva, Śiva, Śiva" somewhere in a sacred forest.

Linked texts (1)

Śatakatraya — Bhartṛhari (poet), Sanskrit