15. Thus bound fast to action and fettered in the meshes of desire, the living souls enchained in their bodies, continue to rove about or rise and fall in this changeful world by turns. 16. Their wish is the cause of their weal or woe, says the Sruti; and which is inseparable from the soul as volition from the mind. (The wish is the inactive desire of the soul, and volition the active will of the mind). 17. Thousands of living souls, are falling off as fast as the leaves of forest trees; and being borne away by the force of their pursuits, they are rolling about as the fallen leaves wafted by the breeze in the valleys. (The aberration of living souls from the Supreme). 18. Many are brought down and bound to innumerable births in this earth, by their ignorance of the Chit or Divine Intellect, and are subjected to interminable transmigrations in various births. 19. There are some who having passed many mean births in this earth, have now risen high in the scale of beings, by their devotedness to better acts (and are likely to have their liberation in the course of their progression to the best). 20. Same persons acquainted with spirituality, have reached their state of perfection; and have gone to heaven, like particles of sea-water, carried into the air above by the blowing winds. 21. The production of all beings is from the Supreme Brahmá; but their appearance and disappearance in this frail world, are caused by their own actions. Hence the actionless yogi, is free from both these states. (God made everything perfect; Man’s sin brought his death and woe). 22. Our desires are poisonous plants, bearing the fruits of pain and disappointment; and lead us to actions which are fraught with dangers and difficulties. (Cursed was the ground for man’s unrestricted desires, which sowed it with thorns and thistles). 23. These desires drive us to different countries, to distant hills and dales in search of gain. (Else man could live content with little and on his native plain). 24. This world O Ráma! is a jungle of withered trees and brambles; and requires the axe of reason to clear away these drugs and bushes. So are our minds and bodies but plants and trees of our woe, which being rooted out by the axe of reason, will no more come to grow by their transmigration in this earth. (The mind and body are rooted out by Suppression of their desires and passions). CHAPTER LXXXXIV. BRAHMA THE ORIGIN OF ALL. Argument. Description of the twelve species of Human beings and the ways of their liberation. Vasishtha said:—Hear me now relate to you, Ráma! the several classes of higher, lower and middling species of beings, and the various grades of their existence here and elsewhere in the scale of creation. (_i.e._ The spontaneous production of beings _suo motu_, when they were not bound by _karma-vipáka_ or acts of a prior life, to be born in any particular form or state on earth).