purposes) is worse than the second.  And as (a small portion of) fire thrust into the hollow of a tree consumeth the tree itself to its roots, even so affection, ever so little, destroyeth both virtue and profit.  He cannot be regarded to have renounced the world who hath merely withdrawn from worldly possessions.  He, however, who though in actual contact with the world regardeth its faults, may be said to have truly renounced the world.  Freed from every evil passion, soul dependent on nothing with such a one hath truly renounced the world.  Therefore, should no one seek to place his affections on either friends or the wealth he hath earned.  And so should affection for one’s own person be extinguished by knowledge.  Like the lotus-leaf that is never drenched by water, the souls of men capable of distinguishing between the ephemeral and the everlasting, of men devoted to the pursuit of the eternal, conversant with the scriptures and purified by knowledge, can never be moved by affection.  The man that is influenced by affection is tortured by desire; and from the desire that springeth up in his heart his thirst for worldly possessions increaseth.  Verily, this thirst is sinful and is regarded as the source of all anxieties.  It is this terrible thirst, fraught with sin that leaneth unto unrighteous acts.  Those find happiness that can renounce this thirst, which can never be renounced by the wicked, which decayeth not with the decay of the body, and which is truly a fatal disease!  It hath neither beginning nor end.  Dwelling within the heart, it destroyeth creatures, like a fire of incorporeal origin.  And as a faggot of wood is consumed by the fire that is fed by itself, even so doth a person of impure soul find destruction from the covetousness born of his heart.  And as creatures endued with life have ever a dread of death, so men of wealth are in constant apprehension of the king and the thief, of water and fire and even of their relatives.  And as a morsel of meat, if in air, may be devoured by birds; if on ground by beasts of prey; and if in water by the fishes; even so is the man of wealth exposed to dangers wherever he may be.  To many the wealth they own is their bane, and he that beholding happiness in wealth becometh wedded to it, and knoweth not true happiness.  And hence accession of wealth is viewed as that which increaseth covetousness and folly.  Wealth alone is the root of niggardliness and boastfulness, pride and fear and anxiety!  These are the miseries of men that the wise see in riches!  Men undergo infinite miseries in the acquisition and retention of wealth.  Its expenditure also is fraught with grief.  Nay, sometimes, life itself is lost for the sake of wealth!  The abandonment of wealth produces misery, and even they that are cherished by one’s wealth become enemies for the sake of that wealth!  When, therefore, the possession of wealth is fraught with such misery, one should not mind its loss.  It is the ignorant alone who are discontented.  The wise, however,