Verse 17

¹²So am I, fair-browed one, wretched, held fast by love of you. I do not know my own self, bewildered as I am by your maya. ¹³Whatever rice and barley there is on the earth, whatever gold, whatever cattle and women, none of it yields the mind's pleasure to a man struck down by desire. ¹⁴Desire is never stilled by the having of what is desired. Like the fire with the black track, fed with butter, it only rises higher. ¹⁵When a man means no harm to any being at all, and looks at everything evenly, then every quarter is full of ease for him. ¹⁶That thirst which the ill-minded cannot let go of, which does not grow old though the man himself grows old: let one who wants ease drop it quickly. It is a heap of sorrows.

¹⁷One should not sit alone with a mother, a sister or a daughter. The gathered senses are strong, and drag away even a man who knows.