17. Stir yourself to action as it occurs to you, and without any purpose or desire of yours in it, and without your feeling any pain or pleasure therein; let the current of the business conduct you onward, as the current of a stream carries down a straw in its course. 18. Take to thy heart no pleasure or pain, in the discharge of the work in which thou art employed; but remain insensible of both like a wooden machine which works for others. (Because, says the commentary, it is the dull head of people only, that are elated or dejected in the good or bad turns of the affairs of life). 19. Remain insensible of pleasure or pain, in thy body and mind and all the organs of senses; like the sapless trees and plants in winter, when they bear their bare trunks without the sensitiveness of their parts. 20. Let the sun of thy good understanding, suck up the sensibility of thy six external senses, as the solar rays dry up the moisture of winter plants; and continue to work with the members of thy body, as an engine is set to work. (Work as a brute with thy bodily powers or as a machine with its mechanical forces; but keep thy inner mind aloof from thy outer drudgeries). 21. Restrain thy intellectual pleasures from their inclination to sensual gratifications, and retain thy spiritual joy in thyself, for the support of thy life; as the ground retains the roots of trees in it very carefully in winter for their growth in the season of spring. 22. It is the same whether you continually gratify or not the cravings of your senses, they will continue insatiate notwithstanding all your supplies, and the vanities of the world will profit you nothing. 23. If you move about continually like a running stream, or as the continuous shaking of the water in an aerostatic or hydraulic engine, and be free from every desire and craving of your mind, you are then said to advance towards your endless felicity (so the adage is:—All desire is painsome, and its want is perfect freedom). 24. Know this as a transcendent truth, and capable of preventing all your future transmigrations in this world, that you become accustomed to the free agency of all your actions, without being dragged to them by your desires. 25. Pursue your business as it occurs to you, without any desire or purpose of your own towards its object; but continue to turn about your callings, as the potter’s wheel revolves round its fulcrum. 26. Neither have in view the object of your action, nor the reward of your action; but know it to be equally alike whether you refrain from action, or do it without your desire of fruition. 27. But what is the use of much verbiology, when it can be expressed in short and in a few words, that the desire of fruition is the bondage of your soul, and your relinquishment of it is fraught with your perfect freedom.