O Rama, consider this world with all its manifold expansion—though it appears so full, within it is truly empty. Set aside the desires and thirsts of your mind, and turn your contemplation elsewhere. For just as the grandest deeds in a dream are nothing but illusion, so too is this long journey of life a fabrication of the mind, no more real than a fleeting vision. Abandon the spectacle of worldly existence, which is like a treasury filled with desires as perilous as serpents. Though it may appear to promise great enjoyment, when you grasp it, you find it is without substance. Knowing this to be unreal, root your mind in pure awareness. Who, having recognized a mirage, would chase after it, if he is wise? If a person, deluded by imagination, pursues the alluring forms conjured by his own wishful thinking, he becomes only a vessel for suffering. Let this world, which lacks true reality, move as it will toward the unreal; but one who gives up what is real to chase the unreal is surely lost. All this is but the mind’s delusion, like mistaking a rope for a snake. Through the endless play of imagination, the world seems to revolve endlessly. Only the child is deceived by these states born of unreality, as with the wavering moon reflected in water; not the knower of truth, like you, Rama. Whoever seeks happiness amidst this mass of qualities, thinking to find it there, is truly dull; he tries to wipe away dullness in a fire that does not give reflection. The pleasures of this world are truly unreal—a cage of appearances, a creation of mind and thought, like a city imagined in the heart. By the mind’s own will, this world arises, and by that same will, it dissolves. It is a vast illusion, like a city conjured by celestial beings. Rama, when this world is lost, nothing at all is truly lost; and even when it appears to exist, nothing is truly established. If the city imagined by the mind is destroyed in the heart, which was its vast expanse, and if someone claims it has grown, tell me—what has grown, for whom, and what has been harmed? Just as children imagine cities in their hearts for play, so does this world ceaselessly arise in the mind. Nothing is lost for anyone, just as nothing is lost in the water of a magician’s illusion, even when this world, with all its coming and going, is lost or destroyed. If what is unreal is truly unreal, what loss or harm can there be for anyone? Thus, this so-called world is not truly a ground for joy or sorrow. If something is utterly unreal, what indeed can be lost in it? And if there is no loss, O wise one, how can there be any occasion for suffering? Or, if something is utterly real, what can be lost of it? This entire world is truly Brahman—what then is the cause for happiness or sorrow? In this world, which is entirely unreal and leads only to destruction, what is there for the wise to desire or accept in the cycle of existence? And even if the world is entirely real and filled with the essence of Brahman, what could there be in all the three worlds that the wise would reject or avoid? Whether the world is unreal or real, to one who knows, it is beyond pleasure and pain; but the ignorant, clinging to partial understanding, suffer. That which does not exist at the beginning or end, and does not truly exist in the present—if someone desires such unreality, O Rama, only nonexistence remains for him. That which is true at the beginning and end, and truly exists in the present—one who sees only reality, for him, only existence remains. Only children desire things like the moon reflected in water or flowers in the sky, which are unreal; the wise do not, for such desires only delude the mind. A child, seeking satisfaction from objects with various forms and purposes, attains only endless sorrow, never happiness. Therefore, do not be childish, O Rama, lotus-eyed one. Seeing how all here is impermanent, always rely on what is stable and enduring. Do not let sorrow arise in you by thinking, “All this is unreal, and I am united with it.” Likewise, do not let sorrow arise by thinking, “All this is real, and I am united with it.” When she had thus spoken to the sage, the day drew toward evening and set in preparation for night. She went to bathe, offered salutations in the assembly, and departed as the rays of the sun faded from sight. Now, consider, Rama: when wealth or a spouse is lost, what occasion is there for grief? If an illusion appears for a moment and then vanishes, what is the point of lamenting? Whether a city of the Gandharvas is adorned or defiled, or whether ignorance touches children and others, what true sequence of happiness or sorrow lies in these? When wealth or spouse is gained, what occasion is there for joy? What happiness does a thirsty man find in a mirage, even if it appears to grow larger? When wealth and spouse increase, it is sorrow that is fitting, not satisfaction. When delusion and illusion have grown, who here can find reassurance? The very enjoyments that give rise to attachment in the foolish, when indulged excessively, are the same enjoyments by which the wise develop detachment. Those who do not see the far shore, the deluded, find satisfaction through enjoyments; but those who perceive the farther shore, the virtuous, attain detachment through these very enjoyments. Therefore, Raghava, knowing the truth, in your dealings with the world, let go of what is lost as lost, and accept what is gained as gained. The mark of the wise is genuine indifference toward pleasures not yet arrived, and enjoyment of those that have come. In this turmoil of worldly existence, where the true self is hidden and seems hostile, live with awakened understanding so that you do not fall into delusion. In this display of worldly grandeur, constructed by the process of manifestation, those whose insight is destroyed do not see rightly or evenly; their intellect is misguided. By whatever means, one whose mind is attached to objects of perception and is cleansed by them, never attains pure understanding anywhere. But for one whose conviction that “this is unreal” has ceased regarding all things, ignorance does not touch him; he embraces the all-knowing.