This world (samsara) is as a whirlpool in the ocean of creation, and every individual body is as impermanent as foam, froth or a bubble, which can give me no relish in this life. Knowledge is a burden to the unthinking, and wisdom is burdensome to the passionate. Intellect is a heavy load to the restless, and the body is a ponderous burden to one ignorant of his soul. There is a vegetable life in plants, and an animal life in beasts and birds. Man leads a thinking life, but true life is above thoughts. Man must seek his liberation now while living in this very lifetime. Those who miss this golden opportunity are no better than old asses.

1. 1
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 14
Denunciation of Human Life
Book I, Chapter 14
Denunciation of Human Life
Rama speaking:
1Human life is as frail as a drop of water trembling on
the tip of a leaflet. Life breaking loose from its bodily
imprisonment out of its proper season is as
irrepressible as a raving madman.
2The lives of those whose minds are infected by the
poison of worldly affairs, and who are incapable of
judging for themselves, are only causes for their
torment.
3Those knowing the knowable, and resting in the all-
pervading spirit, and acquiescing alike to their wants
and gains, enjoy lives of perfect tranquillity.
4We who have a certain belief that we are only limited
beings can have no enjoyment in our transient lives,
which are only flashes of lightning in the cloudy sky of
the world.
5It is as impossible to confine the winds or tear the sky
to pieces or wreathe waves into a garland as it is to place
any reliance upon our lives.
6Fast as the fleeting clouds in autumn, and short as the
light of lamp without oil, our lives appear to pass away
as impermanent as rolling waves in the sea.

2. 2
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 14
Denunciation of Human Life
7Rather attempt to lay hold of the moon’s shadow on the
waves, or the fleeting lightening in the sky, or the ideal
lotus blossoms in the ether, than ever place any reliance
upon this unsteady life.
8Men of restless minds, desiring to prolong their
useless and toilsome lives, resemble the barren she-
mule conceived by a horse.
9This world (samsara) is as a whirlpool in the
ocean of creation, and every individual body is as
impermanent as foam, froth or a bubble, which
can give me no relish in this life.
10True living is gain which is worth gaining, which has
no cause of sorrow or remorse, and which is a state of
transcendental tranquillity.
11There is a vegetable life in plants, and an animal
life in beasts and birds. Man leads a thinking life,
but true life is above thoughts.
12All those living beings who being born here once do
not return are said to have lived well in this earth. The
rest are no better than old asses.
13Knowledge is a burden to the unthinking, and
wisdom is burdensome to the passionate. Intellect
is a heavy load to the restless, and the body is a
ponderous burden to one ignorant of his soul.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 14
Denunciation of Human Life
14A good person possessed of life, mind, intellect and
self-consciousness and its occupations, is of no benefit
to the unwise, but seem to weigh down on the unwise
as if he were a porter.
15The discontented mind is the great arena of all
evils, and the nesting place of diseases which
alight upon it like birds of the air. Such a life is
the abode of toil and misery.
16As a house is slowly dilapidated by the mice
continually burrowing under it, so is the body of the
living gradually corroded by the teeth of time boring
within it?
17Deadly diseases breed within the body, feed
upon our vital breath, like poisonous snakes born
in caves of the woods consume the meadow air.
18As the withered tree is perforated by small worms
residing in them, so our bodies are continually wasted
by many inborn diseases and harmful secretions.
19Death is constantly staring and growling at our
face, as a cat looks and purrs at a mouse in order
to devour it.
20Old age wastes us as soon as a glutton digests his food,
and it reduces one to weakness as an old harlot left with
no charm other than her make-up and perfumes.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 14
Denunciation of Human Life
21Youth forsakes us as soon as a good man who, after a
few days learns of his wicked friend’s faults, abandons
him in disgust.
22Death, the lover of destruction and friend of old age
and ruin, likes the sensual man, as a lecher likes a
beauty.
23Thus there is nothing so worthless in the world
as this life, which is devoid of every good quality
and ever subject to death, unless it is attended by
the permanent joy of liberation.
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[Rama’s observations herein above are a lesson for all
seekers of Truth. Those fortunate souls who have the
Creative Word, the all-pervading Spirit of God,
invoked within them enjoy life of perfect tranquillity.
Man leads a thinking life, but true life is above
thoughts. Man must seek his liberation now while
living in this very lifetime. Those who miss this golden
opportunity are no better than old asses.]
*******