CHAPTER  VII.                               75

8.   He is to hold fast to the adoration of God with
praise and thanks.

9.   He is always to have in mind the word dm, the
word of creation, without pronouncing it.

The injunction to abstain from killing as regards
animals (No. i) is only a special part of the general
order to abstain from doing anything hurtful. Under
this head falls also the robbing of another man's goods
(No. 3), and the telling lies (No. 2), not to mention the
foulness and baseness of so doing.

The abstaining from hoarding up (No. 5) means that
a man is to give up toil and fatigue ; that he who seeks
the bounty of God feels sure that he is provided for;
and that, starting from the base slavery of material life,
we may, by the noble liberty of cogitation, attain eternal
bliss.

Practising purity (No, 6) implies that a man knows the
filth of the body, and that he feels called upon to hate
it, and to love cleanness of soul. Tormenting oneself
by poor dress (No, 7) means that a man should reduce
the body, allay its feverish desires, and sharpen its senses.
Pythagoras once said to a man who took great care to
keep his body in a flourishing condition and to allow it
everything it desired, "Thou art not lazy in building
thy prison and making thy fetter as strong as possible."

The holding fast to meditation on God and the angels
means a kind of familiar intercourse with them. The
book Sdriikhya says : " Man cannot go beyond anything
in the wake of which he marches, it being a scope
to him (i.e. thus engrossing his thoughts and detaining
him from meditation on God)." The book Gitd says :
" All that which is the object of a man's continuous
meditating and bearing in mind is stamped upon him,
so that he even unconsciously is guided by it. Since,
now, the time of heath is the time of remembering what
we love, the soul on leaving the body is united with
that object which we love, and is changed into it."