Vyasa said:
O Brahmins! Intelligent scholars, the followers of Kapila and his Saamkhya system, speak of five defects in the body. They are conversant with the path. Listen, O excellent
sages!
Lust, anger, fear, slumber and breath are the defects seen in the bodies of all embodied beings.
By means of patience, they cut off anger; by avoiding close intimacy, they remove lust; by resorting to saattvika substances, they remove slumber; and they remove fear by means of avoidance of errors. They cut off and remove breath, O Brahmins, by means of reduced diet.
Good qualities are known by means of hundreds of good qualities, and defects by means of hundreds of defects. Reasons must be known by means of hundreds of reasons.
Wonderful things should be known by means of hundreds of wonderful things.
The world is like the foam of waters. It is created by means of hundreds of Maya by Visnu.
It resembles the wall painted in a picture. It has as much strength as grass. (It is flimsy and feeble.) It is conducive to great harm. It wanders about in darkness. It must be seen as one resembling bubbles (of water) during rain.
It is almost ruinous though it appears to be pleasant. It instills fear even after its destruction. Just as an elephant that has got stuck in mud becomes helpless, so also the world gets stuck in the slough of rajas and tamas.
The Saamkhyas, O Brahmins, are highly intelligent. They abandon all attachment towards their progeny by means of Knowledge and the object of Knowledge that is
all-pervasive and great, O Brahmins. With the weapon of Knowledge of the Atman, O excellent Ones, and with the rod of penance, they sever off the inauspicious rajasic
odours, tamasic odours, meritorious saattvic odours, and those odours related to the body arising owing to the physical touch. Thereafter they cross the terrible watery
expanse of misery wherein anxiety and grief are great eddies, sickness and death are extremely terrible, great fear acts like great serpents, tamas is like a tortoise and
rajas is like fish. They cross this terrible expanse by means of their intellect.
By the path of Knowledge, the sinless persons, the sages of great achievement, cross the ocean of worldly existence wherein affectionate attachment is mud, old age is the
fort, and the sensation of touch is like an island.
O excellent Brahmins! Karma is the great depth; truth is the bank; holy rites are the places to stand by. O intelligent ones! Violence is the quickness and rapidity of the
current; it is turbid due to different rasas.
Different gestures of love are great jewels; misery and fever are the winds; grief and thirst are the great whirlpools; it has great pain due to sickness.
O excellent Brahmins! The set of bones is the flight of steps with phlegm for joining them; liberal charity is the mine of pearls; the terrible outpourings of blood are the coral beads; laughter and lamentation are the loud reports.
It is very difficult to cross on account of various acts of ignorance. The dirt accumulated by the tears of lamentation is the brine; contact and union are the goals; this world of birth is one that deceives with sons and relatives for their towns; this (worldly existence) is an ocean unto all living beings with nonviolence and truthfulness for its line of boundary; it is full of surging waves due to the (incessant) contacts of vital airs; milk flows in successive waves; the territory here is the rare salvation; and it is an ocean with the submarine fire at its mouth. Sinless ascetics cross this ocean (of existence).
After crossing (the ocean of) births which is difficult to cross, they enter the pure sky and, thereafter, on seeing them come, the sun carries them with its rays.
The rays enter them like fibres of lotus, O Brahmins, as they blow over the territories. O sinless Ones! The wind Pravaha takes them up there.
O Brahmins! The subtle, sweet smelling, cool wind Pravaha with gentle touch receives those ascetics who are devoid of passion, and the siddhas whose asset is penance,
and who are endowed with virility.
That wind which is the most excellent of all the seven winds, and which goes to the splendid worlds, leads them, O great Brahmins, to the most excellent goal from the
firmament.
The firmament carries the lords of the worlds to the greatest goal from the rajas. It carries, O great Brahmins, to the greatest goal of sattva.
The pure soul carries the sattva to the great and splendid Lord Narayana. The Lord of Pure Soul carries them to the Supreme Soul by Himself.
After attaining to the Supreme Soul, they become rid of all defects. They are always free of dirt. They become capable of immortality. O Brahmins! they do not come back.
That is the greatest goal, O Brahmins, of those noble souls who are free from the mutually conflicting pairs of opposites, who are devotedly engaged in truthfulness and
straight-forwardness, and who have kindness and sympathy for all living beings.
The sages said:
After attaining to the most excellent region of the Lord, do those persons of steady holy rites sport about there till their death and rebirth?
It behooves you to describe accurately what exactly the truth is therein. Except you, we cannot, O excellent One, afford to ask any other mortal.
This would be a great defect in salvation if other ascetics would also stay in the same place, perfect knowledge leading them to salvation, along with the sages who have
attained to spiritual achievement.
Hence, O Brahmin, we consider Dharma characterized by Pravrtti (life of pious activities as opposed to life of pursuit of Knowledge) as the most supreme one. On the other hand, there is likelihood of misery for a person completely engaged in the (pursuit of) great Knowledge.
Vyasa said:
The question has been put most relevantly, O excellent Sages! Your dilemma has been well enunciated. There is confusion and delusion even amongst scholars in regard to this problem.
Even here, listen to my words in regard to the perfect truth where the great intellect of those noble souls, the followers of Kapila, finds a place.
The sense-organs, too, of the embodied beings, O Brahmins, are aware of the body. They are atman’s karanas (organs of activity and knowledge). The soul perceives all types of subtle entities through them.