13. To apply with diligence to whatever is excellent, not low or mean and not liable to loss or decay, is the precept of parents and preceptors to their sons and pupils. 14. I get the immediate fruit of my labour in proportion to my exertion: hence I say, I enjoy the fruit of my labour and not of fortune. 15. Activity gives us success and it is this that elevates the intelligent. But men of little understandings rely only in fortune in their miserable state. 16. We have ocular evidence (of the efficacy) of activity every day, in the instances of men travelling in distant countries (for the sake of gain). 17. He that eats becomes satiate and not who starves: so he who walks is said to proceed and not one who rests: and in like manner whoso speaks is called a speaker and not the silent man: thus action makes the man. 18. Wise men escape from great difficulties by means of their exertions; but not so the mistaken fatalist by his fruitless inertness. 19. Whoso acts in any manner, gets his reward accordingly; but the restive man has nothing to expect anywhere. 20. By well directed industry a man reaps the best reward, as he meets with its reverse by his misapplied labour: think upon this O Ráma! and do as you like. 21. The reward of industry which a man meets with sooner or later at any time or place, the same is said by the wise to be his fortune. 22. No one can see his fortune, nor has any body ever seen the same, nor is there such a thing to be found in any world: it is but the merit of our acts here which they place in the other world. 23. A man is born on earth to grow up and decay in his time, and no destiny is seen therein in the same way as his childhood, youth and old age. 24. One’s application to diligence and action for the attainment of an object, is known by the term exertion by the wise, whereby all things are accomplished (and which is no destiny). 25. One’s going from one place to another, his holding a thing in the hand, and the movement of his limbs, are all the acts of his exertion and not his destiny. 26. There is another kind of propensity to acts productive of evil; this sort of action is likened to the attempt of a mad man which yields no good. 27. Men of acute understandings raise themselves to elevation, by their association with the virtuous, study of good works and active employment to duties tending to their own good. 28. The boundless joy arising from equanimity, is said to constitute one’s _Summum bonum_ (upon earth). This blessing also results from a man’s diligent application to the Sástras (and not from his destiny). 29. It is the understanding that leads to the knowledge of the Sástras, as it is the other that tends to our right understanding of things. Just so does the lotus serve to beautify a lake, as it is the lake which lends its grace to the lotus. (_i.e._ They serve mutually to assist each other).