Garudapurana 1.113

The glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — [Chapter] 113.
Sūta said:
One should employ a person endowed with virtues and discard one devoid of virtues; / all virtues belong to the learned man, and faults alone to the fool.

One should always sit with the good, keep company with the good, / have dispute and friendship with the good, and engage in nothing with the wicked.

One may even remain in prison with the learned, the discriminating, / the knowers of dharma, and the speakers of truth, but never in a kingdom with villains.

[When] deeds are left unfinished, [a servant] is employed for the sake of the master's business; / therefore, one should cause all works to be carried out leaving a remainder.

Just as a honey-gatherer extracts the essence without destroying the flower, / [and as] one milks cow's milk keeping the calf in mind, so should the king [draw taxes from] the earth and the cow.

Just as the bee gathers honey gradually from flowers, / so the king, having taken revenue, should make a treasury.

An anthill, a honeycomb, the moon in the bright fortnight, / royal wealth, and alms increase little by little.

Seeing the depletion of what has been earned and the gathering of what has been given, / one should make not a single day barren in deeds of giving and study.

Even in the forest, faults arise for the passionate; even in the house, restraint of the five senses is austerity; / for one who engages in blameless action and whose passion has ceased, the home itself is a hermitage.

Dharma is preserved by truth; learning is preserved by practice; / a vessel is preserved by cleaning; a family is preserved by good conduct.

Better is living in the Vindhya forest, dying unfed, / better sleeping among serpents or falling into a well, / better entering into the midst of terrifying waters in a whirling eddy, / than saying to one's own kin: 'Give [me] even an atom of wealth.'

Fortunes decline with the exhaustion of destiny, not through enjoyment; / when previously earned merit is present, they never perish.

Learning is the ornament of brāhmaṇas; the king is the ornament of the earth; / the moon is the ornament of the sky; good character is the ornament of all.

Those sons of the king, equal to the moon, Bhīmasena, Arjuna, and others, brave, true to their vows, of sun-like splendour, embraced by Keśava— / even they, under the influence of evil planets, came under the sway of wretchedness and went to begging alms. Who is capable in what? The line of destiny spins [one] around by the force of fate.

By which Brahmā was constrained inside the vessel of the cosmic egg like a potter; by which Viṣṇu was cast into the great crisis of the thicket of ten incarnations; / by which Rudra was made to wander begging with a skull in the hollow of his hand; [and by which] the sun constantly wanders in the sky—homage to that action [of destiny]!

The giver was Bali, the beggar was the Enemy of Mura, the gift was the earth through the brāhmaṇa's mouth; / having given, the fruit obtained was only bondage! Homage to you, Destiny, who act as you please!

Even if Lakṣmī were the mother and Janārdana himself the father, / if there is inclination toward evil intellect, punishment falls upon him constantly.

In whatever manner, by whomsoever, just as action was previously determined, / that very [fruit] he experiences within, brought upon oneself by oneself.

Sorrow has been made by oneself, happiness has been made by oneself; / taking up the bed of the womb, one indeed experiences what was done in a previous body.

Neither in the intermediate space, nor in the midst of the ocean, nor entering into a crevice of the mountains, / nor held upon the mother's head or lap, is a man able to escape the action he has done.

The fortress was Trikūṭa, the moat was the ocean, the warriors were demons, the livelihood was supreme, / and the science of policy was taught by Uśanas; yet that Rāvaṇa was destroyed by the power of Time.

At whatever age, at whatever time, whether by day or by night, / at whatever muhūrta or moment—it happens just so, not otherwise.

Whether they go into the intermediate space or enter into the earth, / or take shelter in all the directions, what was not given [in a past life] is not obtained.

The knowledge studied in the past, the wealth given in the past, / and the actions done in the past indeed run ahead of the runner.

Actions alone are primary here; even under a favorable asterism and auspicious planet, / and though having the auspicious moment cast by Vasiṣṭha, Jānakī became a vessel of sorrow.

When Rāma had stout calves, and Lakṣmaṇa moved [guided] by sound, / and Sītā had thick hair, all three became vessels of suffering.

A son does not [suffer] by his father's action, nor a father by the son's action; / bound individually by their own karma, they go by what they have done themselves.

Upon bodies born of karma, bodily and mental diseases / fall here like arrows loosed by steadfast archers.

A resolute man pursues a goal with a mind replete with learning in one way; / like a master, karma done formerly ordains it otherwise.

Whether as a child, a youth, or an elder, whatever good or evil [action] one does, / in that very stage of life one experiences [its fruit] birth after birth.

Even an unaware man, even a man staying in a foreign land, / is borne by the wind of his own karma's falling to where its fruit lies.

A human being obtains the thing destined to be obtained; even a god is not able to avert it. / Therefore I do not grieve, nor do I wonder: the writing on the forehead does not depart; what is ours is not others'.

The snake runs into a well, the elephant to a shoulder [of a mountain], and the mouse into a hole; / a person runs swiftly indeed: who escapes from karma?

True knowledge does not become small; even when given away, it grows; / just like water in a well, it truly becomes abundant water.

The wealth that comes by dharma is true; those riches that depart are by adharma. / For dharma and wealth are great in the world; remembering that, one should act for the sake of wealth.

Whatever miseries a wretched person undergoes for the sake of food, / if he endured those very ones for the sake of dharma, he would no longer be a vessel of affliction.

Of all purifications, purification of food is deemed superior; / he who is pure through righteous acquisition of food is pure through purification, not he who is pure by clay and water.

Truth is purification, purity of mind is purification, restraint of the senses is purification, / compassion toward all beings is purification, and purification by water is the fifth.

He who possesses truth and purity finds heaven not difficult to attain; / he whose speech is true surpasses [the merit of] a horse sacrifice.

Even with a thousand lumps of earth and a hundred waters, / a man of wicked conduct, his mind corrupted in intention, is not purified.

He whose hands, feet, and mind are well-restrained, / who has learning, austerity, and renown, attains the fruit of pilgrimage.

He is not elated by honors, nor is he enraged by insults; / when angered, he does not speak harsh words: this is the mark of a virtuous man.

Though hearing timely, beneficial words from a poor man / who is wise and agreeable, no one is pleased.

What is unobtainable cannot be obtained by mortals through the power of mantras, vigor, / intellect, or human effort; what lamentation can there be over that?

Unasked for, he was obtained by me; again, at my sending, he has departed. / He has gone whence he came; what lamentation can there be over that?

Upon a single tree at night there is a gathering of various birds; / at dawn they go in different directions; what lamentation can there be over that?

Among all those travelling together who set out in a single caravan, / if one goes swiftly ahead, what lamentation can there be over that?

Beings have an unmanifest beginning, a manifest middle, O Śaunaka, / and an unmanifest end; what lamentation can there be over that?

One whose time has not arrived does not die, even if pierced by hundreds of arrows; / but touched merely by the tip of a kuśa blade, one whose time has arrived does not live.

One obtains only what is to be obtained; one goes only where one is destined to go; / one experiences only what is to be experienced, both sorrows and joys.

A person meets with this and that; what will he accomplish with lamentations? / Just as flowers and fruits, when impelled, / do not pass by their proper season, so too does karma performed in the past.

Neither conduct, nor lineage, nor learning, nor knowledge, nor virtues, nor purity of seed [matter]; / fortunes earned earlier through austerity bear fruit for him in due time, just like trees.

Death is there where the slayer is; fortune is there where prosperities are; / there and there one goes of oneself, driven by one's own karmas.

Karma performed formerly follows the doer, / just as a calf among thousands of cows finds its mother.

Thus karma performed formerly follows the doer. / Enjoy your own good deed, fool; why do you torment yourself?

Just as karma was performed formerly, whether auspicious or inauspicious, / even so it truly follows the doer into another birth.

A low person sees the faults of others though small as mustard seeds; / his own, though large as bilva fruits, he does not see even while looking.

For those endowed with passion, hatred, and the like, there is no happiness anywhere, O twice-born; / examining it indeed, I see that true happiness is where there is tranquil release.

Where there is attachment, there is fear; attachment is a vessel of grief; / sorrows have their root in attachment; when that is abandoned, there is great happiness.

The body alone is the abode of both sorrow and happiness; / life and the body are born together by nature itself.

All dependence on others is sorrow; all self-reliance is happiness. / One should know this in brief as the definition of pleasure and pain.

After pleasure comes sorrow; after sorrow comes pleasure; / pleasure and sorrow revolve like a wheel for human beings.

What is gone is past; if it is to be, it is far off; / he who conducts himself with the present is not afflicted by grief.

Thus ends the one hundred and thirteenth chapter, in the Bṛhannītisāra of the Ācārakāṇḍa, belonging to the first part called the Pūrvakhaṇḍa of the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa.