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OF THE SELF [1] If you consider the self dear to you, guard it well and protect it. In one or other of the three vigils, (youth, ripe age, old age), keep awake. [2] Establish yourself first in the right way, then you may instruct others. Thus the wise one will avoid all blame. [3] One must practise oneself what one teaches others. Being self-controlled he can control others. It is difficult indeed to control oneself. [4] One's own self is one's master. Which other can be the master? By self-mastery one attains a mastery that is rarely achieved. [5] The evil done to oneself, the evil born of oneself, the evil going out of oneself crushes the evil-minded man, even as diamond crushes a stony gem. [6] One whose evil character has no limit, even like a pine tree entwined by a creeper, does to himself exactly what his enemies would like to do to him. [7] To do evil, to do wrong to oneself is very easy; but to do what is good, to do what is right is extremely difficult. [8] One with a wrong mind who
takes to wrong views reviles the teaching of the noble, the virtuous, the
perfect; he flourishes in order to bring about his own destruction, even as the
bamboo tree does producing its poisonous fruit.
Page – 219 [9] By doing a wrong one does wrong to oneself; by not doing wrong, one purifies oneself. Purity or impurity belongs to one's own self, none can purify another. [10] One must not give up one's
own good for the sake of another's good, however great
it may be. Know your own good and adhere to it.
Page – 220
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