“—­’The ascetic crowned with success said,’—­By diverse acts, O son, as also by the aid of merit, mortal creatures attain to diverse ends here and residence in Heaven.  Nowhere is the highest happiness; nowhere can residence be eternal.  There are repeated falls from the highest regions acquired with such sorrow.  In consequence of my indulgence in sin, I had to attain to diverse miserable and inauspicious ends, filled as I was with lust and wrath, and deluded by cupidity.  I have repeatedly undergone death and rebirth.  I have eaten diverse kinds of food, I have sucked at diverse breasts.  I have seen diverse kinds of mothers, and diverse fathers dissimilar to one another.  Diverse kinds of happiness have been mine and diverse kinds of misery, O sinless one.  On diverse occasions have I been separated from what was agreeable and united with what was disagreeable.  Having earned wealth with great toil I have had to put up with its loss.  Insults and excessive misery I have received from king and relatives.  Mental and physical pain, of great severity, have been mine.  Humiliations I have undergone, and death and immurement under circumstances of great severity.  Falls into Hell have been mine, and great tortures in the domains of Yama.  Decrepitude and diseases have repeatedly assailed me, and calamities, as frequent, in copious measure.  In this world I have repeatedly undergone all those afflictions that flow from a perception of all pairs of opposites.  After all this, one day, overwhelmed with sorrow, blank despair came upon me.  I took refuge in the Formless.  Afflicted as I was with great distress, I gave up the world with all its joys and sorrows.[8] Understanding then this path, I exercised myself in it in this world.  Afterwards, through tranquillity of soul, I attained to this success that thou seest.  I shall not have to come to this world again (after my departure hence).  Verily, till I attain to absorption into eternal Brahman, till, in fact, the final dissolution of the universe, I shall look on those happy ends that will be mine, and on those beings that constitute this universe.[9] Having acquired this excellent success, I shall, after departing from this world, proceed, to what is above it (i.e., Satyaloka) and thence to what is higher (i.e., absorption into Brahman).  Verily, I shall attain to the condition, which is unmanifest aspect of Brahman.  Let no doubt be thine as regards this.  O scorcher of foes, I shall not return to this world of mortal creatures.  O thou of great wisdom, I have become gratified with thee.  Tell me what I shall do for thee.  The time has come for the accomplishment of that purpose for which thou hast come hither.  Verily, I know that object for which thou hast sought me.  I shall soon depart from this world.  Hence it is that I have given thee this hint.  O thou of great wisdom and experience, I have been highly gratified with thee for thy behaviour.  Do thou question me.  I shall discourse on what is beneficial to thee, agreeably to thy desire.  I think thy intelligence is great.  Indeed, I applaud it much, for it was with the aid of that intelligence that thou wert able to recognise me.  Surely, O Kasyapa, thou art possessed of great intelligence.’