“Yudhishthira said, ’All men speak of ourselves as highly fortunate.  In truth, however, there is no person more wretched than ourselves.  Though honoured by all the world, O best of the Kurus, and though we have been born among men, O grandsire, having been begotten by the very gods, yet when so much sorrow has been our lot, it seems, O reverend chief, that birth alone in an embodied form is the cause of all sorrow.  Alas, when shall we adopt a life of Renunciation that is destructive of sorrow?[1342] Sages of rigid vows freed from the seven and ten (i.e., the five breaths, mind, understanding, and the ten organs of knowledge and action), from the five faults of Yoga (viz., desire, wrath, covetousness, fear, and sleep) that constitute the chief causes (for binding man to repeated rounds of earthly life), and from the other eight, viz., the five objects of the senses and the three attributes (of Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas), have never to incur rebirth.  When, O scorcher of foes, shall we succeed in abandoning sovereignty for adopting a life of renunciation?’

“Bhishma said, ’Everything, O great monarch, hath an end.  Everything hath bounds assigned to it.  Even rebirth, it is well-known, hath an end.  In this world there is nothing that is, immutable.  Thou thinkest, O king, that this (viz., the affluence with which thou art invested is a fault).  That it is not so is not true, in regard to our present topic of disquisition.  Ye, however, are conversant with virtue, and have readiness.  It is certain, therefore, that ye shall attain to the end of your sorrow, (viz., Emancipation) in time.[1343] Jiva equipped with body, O king, is not the author of his merits and demerits (or their fruits as represented by happiness and misery).  On the other hand, he becomes enveloped by the Darkness (of Ignorance having attachment and aversion for its essence) that is born of his merits and demerits.[1344] As the wind impregnated with dust of antimony once again seizes the efflorescence of realgar and (though itself destitute of colour) assumes the hues of the substances which it has seized and tinges the different points of the compass (which represent its own hueless progenitor, viz., space), after the same manner, Jiva, though himself colourless, assumes a hue in consequence of being enveloped by Darkness and variegated by the fruits of action, and travels from body to body (making his own stainless and immutable progenitor appear as stained and changeful).[1345] When Jiva succeeds in dispelling by means of Knowledge, the Darkness that invests him in consequence of Ignorance, then Immutable Brahma becomes displayed (in all His glory).  The Sages say that reversion to Immutable Brahma is incapable of being achieved by Acts.  Thyself, others in the world, and the deities too, should reverence them that have achieved Emancipation.  All the great Rishis never desist from culture of Brahma.[1346] In this connection is cited that discourse