Shounaka Counsels Yudhishthira on Detachment

Yudhishthira sat on the ground, his kingdom lost, his brothers wretched, Draupadi humiliated. The brahmana Shounaka saw him there and decided to instruct him. Shounaka was learned in samkhya yoga (the philosophy of enumeration and discernment). He spoke directly to the king. "There are a thousand reasons for grief and a hundred reasons for fear that delude people every day," he said. "But not those who are learned. Intelligent ones like you do not get caught in deeds that are counter to knowledge. When calamities arise because of penury or hardship, or are caused by the deeds of kin, learned ones do not become miserable." Then he recited the shlokas that King Janaka had chanted in earlier times, for imparting stability to the soul. "The world is engulfed in two kinds of misery," Janaka had said, "those resulting from the mind and from the body. There are four kinds of reasons behind physical sorrow — disease, the touch of something painful, labour, and distance from loved things. Mental and physical pain can be reduced through treatment, or by not thinking about them. Just as a hot iron ball affects the water in a pot, mental pain affects the body. Just as water quenches fire, knowledge quenches mental ailments. When the mind is pacified, the body is also pacified." The root of all mental ailments, Janaka taught, is affection. Affection makes a man attached, and that leads to misery. Attachment is the root of all unhappiness and causes fear. Every kind of unhappiness and happiness results from attachment. It is attachment that leads to the desire for material objects. "The fire in a hollow tree burns down the entire tree, right to the roots," Janaka said. "Like that, the evil of attachment, no matter how small, destroys dharma and artha (righteousness and prosperity)." He who has withdrawn is not detached. But one who can see the faults from proximity is dispassionate, bears no hatred, and is detached from objects. Therefore, one should not be attached to one's allies, one's friends, or the riches one has accumulated. Learning destroys attachment to that which results from one's body. Like water on a lotus leaf, one who is united with the learning of the sacred texts has controlled his soul and is not touched by affection. A man overcome with attachment is immersed in desire. From desire, thirst expands. Thirst is everything evil and always disturbs man. It is terrible and leads to much that is against dharma. It ties one down in sin. Those who cannot give it up are deluded. It does not decay with the body's decay. It is like a fatal disease. He who discards this thirst becomes happy. This thirst has no beginning and no end. It destroys men from inside their bodies. Like a fire that has no origin but has arisen, it destroys. Like kindling is destroyed by the fire that it has created, one who has not controlled his soul is destroyed through his natural avarice. "Just as those who are alive are scared of death," Janaka said, "those who have riches are always scared of the king, water, fire, thieves, and relatives. A meat in the air is devoured by birds, on the ground by predatory beasts, and in the water by fish. But one with riches is devoured everywhere. To some men, riches are the source of disaster. A man who is addicted to the superiority of riches will never attain superiority. Therefore, the acquisition of riches always increases the delusion of the mind and is the source of miserliness, insolence, vanity, fear, and anxiety." The wise ones know that riches are the source of miseries in bodies. There is misery in earning riches, preserving them, and in their decay. Their destruction brings unhappiness. Their expenditure brings unhappiness. Even then, people murder for riches. There is unhappiness in giving up riches, but unhappiness also in preserving them. Since their possession brings such misery, one should not think about their loss. Deluded ones are always dissatisfied; the learned are content. There is no end to thirst. Contentment is the supreme happiness. The learned ones know that youth, beauty, life, collection of riches, prosperity, and association with loved ones are temporary and never crave these. "Therefore," Shounaka concluded, "you should not have a desire for riches. If you wish to act in accordance with dharma, free yourself from desire for riches."