In this world, prosperity visits for but a moment, and just as swiftly, poverty follows. Health shines briefly, only to be eclipsed by illness. With each passing instant, the great illusion of worldly existence brings endless reversals. Even the wise are not spared bewilderment by this ceaseless play of delusion. Look to the sky: in one moment, its vastness is stained by the darkness of night; in another, it gleams with the gentle radiance of golden sunlight. Sometimes it appears as a hollow adorned with garlands of blue lotuses and drifting clouds; at times, it resounds with tumultuous noise, and then again, it stands silent and mute. For a moment, stars sparkle in its expanse; for another, the sun reigns; then the moon gladdens the night, and at times, the sky seems entirely cast out. With the supreme coming and going, with existence and destruction ever at play, who in this world—even among the wise—does not fear such uncertainty? Calamities and fortunes alike come and go in fleeting moments; birth and death themselves are but brief episodes. O sage, what in this world is not momentary? What was here before has vanished, replaced by something else as days pass. O Lord, even what appears uniform is never firmly established. Sometimes, a cloth is mistaken for a pot, and the pot’s existence is perceived in the cloth; what is not seen does not exist, and thus the cycle of existence turns upside down. A hero may be slain by a coward, and a single person may defeat a hundred; the ordinary may rise to dominance, for everything in the world moves in cycles. This world is driven by constant confusion, stirred by agitation and grasping, like a series of waves. Childhood lasts only a few days, then youth’s glory arrives, followed by old age; even the body changes constantly, just as wood among external objects. The mind, too, shifts its moods—joyful for a moment, sorrowful the next, then gentle—acting like an actor in every scene. Fate moves things from here to elsewhere, again and again, tirelessly, like a child at play. It gathers, excites, consumes, destroys, strikes, and absorbs; the creator of this world acts through countless rises and falls. In a moment, things change; in a day, something else arises; in the morning, yet another transformation. Fate, skilled in deception, remains unseen by all. What exists today is gone tomorrow; what is tomorrow is not today; what is at another time is not today—everything turns again and again. Sorrows are continuous here, pleasures rare; like day and night, they revolve ceaselessly for each person. For those subject to birth and death, who come and go, neither misfortunes nor fortunes remain constant. From one step to the next, sin brings all into calamity, standing as the remnant of wickedness, shaken off carelessly, like a trace of dark time. The streams of results arising from the succession of beings in the three worlds, differing in their ripening of pleasure and pain, are struck down each day by the winds of time from the trees of ever-spreading transmigration. Thus, when the great mind is scorched by the fire of discernment, desires for enjoyment no longer arise, just as mirages do not appear in real lakes. Day by day, the cycle of worldly existence becomes exceedingly bitter, like the taste of a neem tree intensified by the ripening of time. O King, in the hearts of people, harshness grows and goodness diminishes each day, as if in a grove of rough karañja trees. Boundaries on earth are suddenly shattered in every direction, like dry bean pods splitting open with a harsh, cracking sound. Kings, though possessing kingdoms and heaps of enjoyments, are full of cares; it is better to have a solitary disposition, free from the buds of anxiety. My garden brings me no joy, my wealth no happiness; desires for gain do not delight me—I am at rest with my mind. The world is impermanent and devoid of happiness, and thirst, dear one, is hard to bear. With a mind afflicted by restlessness, how can I find peace? I do not welcome death, nor do I welcome life; as I remain, so I remain—free from feverish longing. What use is a kingdom to me, or enjoyments, or wealth, or ambitions? All these were under the sway of ego, and now that has fallen away for me. In the chain of repeated births, the bonds of the senses are strong; those who strive to free themselves from these attachments are truly noble. My mind has been crushed by the proud and fickle people of the world, just as a tender lotus is bruised by the trampling of an elephant’s hoof. O great sage, if today the mind is not healed with sound understanding, then when will there ever be an opportunity for the treatment of the mind again? Poison is not called poison; the discord of sense-objects is poison. Sense-objects destroy across lifetimes, while ordinary poison destroys only one body. Neither pleasures nor pains, neither friends nor relatives, neither life nor death bind the mind of the wise. O best among those who know past and future, O Brahman, instruct me swiftly so that I may become like that sage—free from sorrow, fear, and toil. The forest of ignorance is tangled with the net of tendencies, crowded with the thorns of suffering, dense with falls and calamities, and terrifying in form. O sage, I am able to endure the fierce torment—like being crushed by a sharp saw—of the poison and distress arising from worldly dealings. This delusion of people, saying 'this is not, this is,' shakes this fickle mind as the wind scatters a heap of dust. The collection of lives, strung together by the threads of craving, is like a pearl whose luster is the reflection of consciousness, ever manifest as the leader of the mind.