23. Those among them that have become _sannyasins_, are deserters of their prescribed duties, while they that are _Brahmacharins_, are strict observers of the law and their sacred rites: but those that have the faith of Buddha, are apostates from the holy faith, and fanatics in their practices. 24. Some of these have left their native homes, and others have quitted their natal lands altogether; some have their settled habitations in some place, and others leading their nomadic lives from place to place. 25. Among these, O Ráma, that dwell in the sublunar sphere of this globe, as also among them that live at the antipodes, and are known as daityas:-- 26. Some are of clear understandings, and well acquainted with the civil laws of their society; some are of enlightened understanding, and others again are acquainted with the past, and have a foresight of the future. 27. Some are of unenlightened understandings, and are always in suspense, and suspicion of their minds; they are addicted to vice, and unable to govern themselves, are always under the government of others. 28. Some there are who are half-enlightened, and proud withal of their knowledge of truth; they break loose from the observance of customary duties, and are not yet the esoteric yogi or spiritualist. 29. Thus among these great multitudes of men, that are wading in the vast ocean of life, every one is striving to get the end, according to his different aim and object. 30. But it is neither one’s confining himself at home, or remaining in his native country, nor his betaking him to hermitage or dwelling in some solitary forest; nor the observance of customary duties; nor practice of painful austerities, whereby one may ford over the unfordable gulf of this world. 31. Neither dependence on righteous acts nor the forsaking of them; nor one’s employment in the observance of customary usages, or his attainment of great powers, can be of any avail to him, in saving him from the turmoils of the world. 32. It is one’s self-control only, that is the means of his salvation (lit., getting over the sea of the world); and the man whose mind is not attached, or tied down to anything in this world, is said to have got or gone over it. 33. It is no matter whether a man does or neglects, the righteous deeds of his religion and society; provided he keeps the contriteness of his mind in both, and is never attached to nor affected by either: such a man is deemed a sage and saved from his return to this nether world. 34. The man that does neither any righteous or unrighteous action in his life, but has his mind fixed in this earth, and attached to earthly objects, is deemed a hypocrite, and destined to revisit this earth in his repeated births.