Verse 38

³⁸On this too, best of the demons, hear from me what those who chant many verses have sung: what is spoken as yes is truth, and what says no is untruth. ³⁹Truth, one should know, is sung as the flower and the fruit of the tree that is the self. If the tree does not live they cannot be. Untruth is the root of the self. ⁴⁰So, as a tree torn up by the root dries and topples before long, in the same way a self whose untruth is destroyed dries up at once. There is no doubt of it. ⁴¹The syllable that is yes is turned outward, and is emptied, or unfilled. Whatever a man says yes to, by that he is drained; and saying yes to everything for a beggar, he is not enough for his own wants.

⁴²But the word no, though it is untruth, is full and turns towards the self. One who says no, untruth, to everything is ill spoken of: he breathes, and he is dead. ⁴³With women, in jesting and in marriage, for the sake of a living, when life is in danger, for the sake of cows and brahmins, and where harm is to be stopped, untruth is not to be despised.