VERSE 12

Numerous are the calamities we have thus to bear. There are those who say: Why bother about all this Vedanta? Let us go through life somehow. But when calamities and difficulties assail them, they suffer uncontrollable grief. Therefore, it is good to realize the truth that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow. Sorrow is the obverse of joy.

You cannot have the one without the other in the world. Sorrow cannot be eliminated outright. Only, we must acquire the strength of mind to bear it. To be able to do it, one must acquire true knowledge. Therefore, the knowledge which Sri Sankara, the Sanyaasin, insists on is indispensable even for an ordinary householder's comfortable life.

Day and night, morn and eve,

Winter and spring come and dance and go.

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