“Bhishma said, ’When one’s wealth is lost, or one’s wife or son or sire is dead, one certainly says to oneself ‘Alas, this is a great sorrow!’ But then one should, by the aid of reflection, seek to kill that sorrow.  In this connection is cited the old story of the speech that a regenerate friend of his, coming to Senajit’s court, made to that king.  Beholding the monarch agitated with grief and burning with sorrow on account of the death of his son, the Brahmana addressed that ruler of very cheerless heart and said these words, ’Why art thou stupefied?  Thou art without any intelligence.  Thyself an object of grief, why dost thou grieve (for others)?  A few days hence others will grieve for thee, and in their turn they will be grieved for by others.  Thyself, myself, and others who wait upon thee, O king, shall all go to that place whence all of us have come.’

“Senajit said, ’What is that intelligence, what is that penance, O learned Brahmana, what is that concentration of mind, O thou that hast wealth of asceticism, what is that knowledge, and what is that learning, by acquiring which thou dost not yield to sorrow?’

“The Brahmana said, ’Behold, all creatures,—­the superior, the middling, and the inferior,—­in consequence of their respective acts, are entangled in grief.  I do not regard even my own self to be mine.  On the other hand, I regard the whole world to be mine.  I again think that all this (which I see) is as much mine as it belongs to others.  Grief cannot approach me in consequence of this thought.  Having acquired such an understanding, I do not yield either to joy or to grief.  As two pieces of wood floating on the ocean come together at one time and are again separated, even such is the union of (living) creatures in this world.  Sons, grandsons, kinsmen, relatives are all of this kind.  One should never feel affection for them, for separation with them is certain.  Thy son came from an invisible region.  He has departed and become invisible.  He did not know thee.  Thou didst not know him.  Who art thou and for whom dost thou grieve?  Grieve arises from the disease constituted by desire.  Happiness again results from the disease of desire being cured.  From joy also springs sorrow, and hence sorrow arises repeatedly.  Sorrow comes after joy, and joy after sorrow.  The joys and sorrows of human beings are revolving on a wheel.  After happiness sorrow has come to thee.  Thou shalt again have happiness.  No one suffers sorrow for ever, and no one enjoys happiness for ever.  The body is the refuge of both sorrow and happiness.[501] Whatever acts an embodied creature does with the aid of his body, the consequence thereof he has to suffer in that body.  Life springs with the springing of the body into existence.  The two exist together, and the two perish together.[502] Men of uncleansed souls, wedded to worldly things by various bonds, meet with destruction like embankments of sand in water.  Woes of diverse kinds, born of ignorance, act like