person of restrained soul, who becomes the object of adoration with all by becoming the foremost of the supporting pillars of the universe, and towards whom only agreeable words are spoken by all, attains to the companionship of the deities.  Revilers never come forward to speak of the merits of a person as they speak of his demerits.  That person whose speech and mind are properly restrained and always devoted to the Supreme, succeeds in attaining to the fruits of the Vedas, Penances, and Renunciation.  The man of wisdom should never revile (in return) those that are destitute of merit, by uttering their dispraise and by insults.  He should not extol others (being extolled by them) and should never injure themselves.  The man endued with wisdom and learning regards revilement as nectar.  Reviled, he sleeps without anxiety.  The reviler, on the other hand, meets with destruction.  The sacrifices that one performs in anger, the gifts one makes in anger, the penances one undergoes in anger, and the offerings and libations one makes to the sacred fire in anger, are such that their merits are robbed by Yama.  The toil of an angry man becomes entirely fruitless.  Ye foremost of immortals, that person is said to be conversant with righteousness whose four doors, viz., the organ of pleasure, the stomach, the two arms, and speech, are well-restrained.  That person who, always practising truth and self-restraint and sincerity and compassion and patience and renunciation, becomes devoted to the study of the Vedas, does not covet what belongs to others, and pursues what is good with a singleness of purpose, succeeds in attaining to heaven.  Like a calf sucking all the four teats of its dam’s udders, one should devote oneself to the practice of all these virtues.  I do not know whether anything exists that is more sacred than Truth.  Having roved among both human beings and the deities, I declare it that Truth is the only means for reaching heaven even as a ship is the only means for crossing the ocean.  A person becomes like those with whom he dwells, and like those whom he reverences, and like to what he wishes to be.  If a person waits with reverence on him who is good or him who is otherwise, if he waits with reverence on a sage possessed of ascetic merit or on a thief, passes under his way and catches his hue like a piece of cloth catching the dye in which it is steeped.  The deities always converse with those that are possessed of wisdom and goodness.  They, therefore, never entertain the wish for even seeing the enjoyments in which men take pleasure.  The person who knows that all objects of enjoyment (which human beings cherish) are characterised by vicissitudes, has few rivals, and is superior to the very Moon and the Wind.[1579] When the Purusha that dwells in one’s heart is unstained, and walks in the path of the righteous, the gods take a pleasure in him.  The gods from a distance cast off those that are always devoted to the gratification of their organs of pleasure and