25. In this manner, O Ráma! the sparrow on the Pradyumna mount, the gnat in the palace, and the parrot on the play ground, had all their liberation. 26. Thus I have related to you the whole of the story of the demon Dáma and others, which will fully convince you of the vanity of the world. 27. It is the ignorant only that are tempted to vanity by their error, as they are led to the delusion of water in a mirage; and so the great also are liable like these demons, to fall low from their high stations by their error. 28. Think of one of these, that reduced the high Meru and Mandara mountains with a nod of his eyebrows, was constrained to remain as a contemptible gnat in the chink of a pillar in the palace. (So the huge Satan entered the body of the small and hateful serpent, and the gigantic devils in the hateful bodies of the herd of swine). 29. Look at another who threatened to destroy the sun and moon with a slap, living at last as a poor sparrow in a hole of the peak of the Pradyumna mountain. 30. Look at the third who balanced the mount Meru like a flower bouquet in his hand, lying imprisoned as a parrot in the cage at the house of Nrisingha. 31. When the sphere of the pure intellect, is tinged with the hue of egotism, it is debased to another form without changing its nature (by another birth). 32. It is because of the wrong desire of a man that he takes the untruth for truth, as if by the excessive thirst of a person, that he mistakes the mirage for water, and thereby loses both his way and his life. 33. Those men only can ford across the ocean of the world, who by the natural bent of their good understanding, are inclined to the study of the sástras, and look forward to their liberation, by rejecting whatever is vicious and untrue. 34. Those who are prone to false reasoning and heresy, by rejecting the revelations, are subject to various changes and miseries, and fall like the running water into the pit, by loss of their best interests in life. 35. But those who walk by the dictates of conscience, and follow the path pointed by the Ágama (Veda), are saved from destruction, and attain their best state (of perfection and bliss). 36. O highminded Ráma! he whose mind always longs after having this thing and that, loses the best gain of his manliness (parama purushártha) by his avarice, and leaves not even ashes or traces behind. 37. The high-minded man regards the world as a straw, and shuns all its concerns as a snake casts off its slough. 38. He whose mind is illumined by the wondrous light of truth, is always taken under the protection of the gods, as the mundane egg is protected by Brahmá (or rather under the wings of Brahmá’s swan, hatching over its egg). 39. Nobody should walk in paths which are long and wearisome, crooked and winding, and encompassed by dangers and difficulties; because Ráhu—the ascending node, lost its life by its curvilinear course, to drink the nectarine beams of the moon.