Verse 1

¹My sons, this body that embodied beings have in the world of men does not deserve the hard-won pleasures of dung-eaters. It deserves shining austerity, which cleanses a man and brings the joy of Brahman, which has no end. ²They call waiting on the great the door to release, and company with men attached to women the door to darkness. The great are even-minded, wholly calm, without anger, well-wishing, good. ³So are those whose one aim is friendship with me, the Lord: no pleasure for them in people whose business is the belly, nor in houses of wife and children and money; in the world they take only as much as serves.

⁴Surely a heedless man does what should not be done, filling himself for the pleasure of the senses. I do not call it good: from it this body has come to the self, and though unreal it gives pain. ⁵Defeat, born of not knowing, lasts as long as a man does not care to know what the self is. While there are rites to do, the mind is made of work, and by that the body binds. ⁶So the mind, in the power of work, keeps him going while ignorance lays it over the self. Until there is love in him for me, Vasudeva, he is not let go from the yoke of a body.