Yudhishthir Answers to Yaksh's Questions-2

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33. What is the highest duty in the world?
To abstain somebody from injury is the highest of all duties.

34. What is it, controlling which will lead to no regret?
The mind, if controlled, will never lead to regret.

35. What is that, which when renounced, makes one agreeable?
Pride, when renounced, makes one agreeable.

36. Renouncing what makes one wealthy?
Desire, when renounced makes one wealthy.

37. What is it, when renounced, leads to no regret?
Anger, when renounced leads to no regret.

38. Renouncing what makes a man happy?
Avarice, greed when renounced makes a man happy.

39. What is The Way? By whom it is constituted?
Those that are good constitute The Way.

40. What is the sign of asceticism?
Staying in one's own religion is asceticism.

41. What is true restraint?
The restraint of the mind is true restraint.

42. What is the essential feature of forgiveness?
Forgiveness consists in enduring enmity.

43. What is the sign of shame?
Withdrawing from all unworthy acts is shame.

44. What is said to be the knowledge?
The true knowledge is the knowledge of Divinity.

45. What is tranquility?
True tranquility is that of the heart.

46. What is mercy?
Mercy means wishing happiness for all.

47. What is simplicity?
Simplicity is equanimity (evenness of mind under stress) of the heart.

48. Can you tell me what enemy is invincible?
Anger.

49. What disease is incurable?
Covetousness (avaricious, greed, strong desire to have material possessions).

50. Which man is considered honest?
He who desires the good of all creatures is honest.

51. And which man is dishonest?
Who is not merciful is dishonest.

52. What is ignorance?
Not knowing one's duties is true ignorance.

53. And pride?
Pride is a consciousness of one's being himself an actor or sufferer in life.

54. What is idleness?
Not discharging one's duties is idleness.

55. What is grief?
Ignorance is grief.

56. What is patience?
Patience is subjugating (controlling) the senses.

57. What is real ablution (the washing of one's body or of its part as in religious rite)?
A true bath is washing the mind clean of all impurities.

58. What is charity?
Charity consists of protecting all creatures.

59. What is wickedness?
Wickedness is speaking ill of others.

60. By what does one become a Braahman? Is it behavior? Or birth? Or study? Or learning?
Neither birth, nor study, nor even learning makes a Braahman. It is the behavior that makes a person Braahman. If his behavior is faultless, the man is faultless too. Bad conduct damns a man for ever. Study of the Ved is not enough if a man does not conduct himself properly.

61. What is the reward for one who always speaks agreeable words?
He becomes agreeable to all.

62. When he acts with judgment what does he get?
He gets whatever he seeks.

63. When he has many friends?
He lives happily.

64. If he is devoted to virtue?
He is happy in next world.

65. What is the greatest wonder of this world?
Day after day countless lives enter into the Temple of Death, still the remaining people think they are permanent, immortal. Can anything be a greater wonder than this?

66. What is The Path?
Arguments lead to no certain conclusions. The Shruti are all different, one from the other. There is not even one Rishi whose opinion can be accepted infallible. The truth about religion and duty is hidden in caves. Therefore, that alone is The Path along which the Great people have trod.

67. What is the News?
The world, full of ignorance, is like a pan. The Sun is fire. The days and nights are the fuel. The months and the seasons are wooden handles. TIME is the COOK that is cooking all creatures in that pan. That is the News.

68. Who is truly a Man?
The report of one's good actions reach Heaven and it is spread over the Earth. As long as that report lasts, so long is that person called as a Man?

69. Which is the man who is considered to possess every kind of wealth?
The man to whom the agreeable and the disagreeable, the weal and the woe, the past and the future, are the same, is considered to possess every kind of wealth

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