Our anxieties and cares are the offshoot of our wealth and possessions and they deplete the life-force share of creative vibratory elements ether and air, thus effecting the vital organs of our body (viz. mind and heart) that derive sustenance from these elements. Temptation begins by capturing your attention. What gets your attention arouses your emotions. Then your emotions activate your behaviour, and you act on what you feel. The more you focus on “I don’t want to do this,” the stronger it draws you into its web. Ignoring a temptation is far more effective than fighting it. Once your mind is on something else, the temptation loses its power. Spiritually, your mind is your most vulnerable organ. To reduce temptation, keep your mind occupied with God’s Word and other good thoughts.

1. 1
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 13
Denunciation of Wealth
Book I, Chapter 13
Denunciation of Wealth
Rama said:
1O sage, here wealth is reckoned a blessing, yet
she is the cause of our troubles and errors.
2She bears away like a river in the rainy season. All
high-spirited simpletons are overpowered by her
current.
3Her daughters are anxieties fostered by many a
bad deed, like the waves of a stream raised by
winds.
4She can never stand steady on her legs anywhere, but
like a wretched woman who has burnt her feet, she
limps from one place to another.
5Wealth like a lamp both burns and blackens its
owner, until it is extinguished by its own flame.
6She is unapproachable like princes and fools, and
likewise as favourable as they to her adherents, without
scanning their merits or faults.
7She begets only evils in them by their various acts, as
good milk when given to serpents serves to increase the
strength of their poison.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 13
Denunciation of Wealth
8Men are gentle and kind hearted to friends and
strangers, until their hearts are hardened by their
riches, which like blasts of wind serve to stiffen
frost.
9As brilliant gems are soiled by dust, so are the learned,
the brave, the grateful, the mild and the gentle
corrupted by riches.
10Riches do not lead to happiness but redound to sorrow
and destruction, as the plant aconite when nourished
hides fatal poison in itself.
11A rich man without blemish, a brave man devoid
of vanity, and a master lacking partiality are the
three rarities on earth.
12The rich are as inaccessible as the dark cave of a huge
serpent, and as unapproachable as the deep wilderness
of Vindhya Mountain inhabited by fierce elephants.
13Riches, like the shadow of night, overcast the
good qualities of men, and like moonlight, bring
to bloom the buds of their misery. Like a
hurricane, they blow away the brightness of a fair
prospect. Riches resemble a sea with huge surges.
14They bring a cloud of fear and error upon us, increase
the poison of despondence and regret, and are like
dreadful snakes in the field of our choice.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 13
Denunciation of Wealth
15Fortune is a frost to those who are bound to asceticism,
and is like the night to the owls of libertinism. She is
an eclipse to the moonlight of reason, and like
moonbeams to the bloom of the lilies of folly.
16She is as transitory as the rainbow, and as
pleasant to see by the play of her colours. She is
as fickle as lightening which vanishes as quickly
as it appears. Hence none but the ignorant have
reliance on her.
17She is as unsteady as a well born maiden following a
base born man to the woods. She is like a mirage that
tempts runaways to fall to it as the doe.
18Unsteady as a wave, she is never steady in any place,
like the flickering flame of a lamp. So her leaning is
known to nobody.
19She, like the lioness, is ever quick to fight, and like
the leader of elephants, she is favourable to her
partisans. She is as sharp as the blade of a sword, and
she is the patroness of sharp-witted sharpsters.
20I see no joy in uncivil prosperity, which is full of
treachery and replete with every kind of danger and
trouble.
21It is pity that prosperity is like a shameless wench who
will again lay hold of a man who has abandoned her for
her rival poverty.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 13
Denunciation of Wealth
22What is she, with all her loveliness and
attraction of human hearts, but a momentary thing
obtained by all manner of evil means, and
resembling at best a flower shrub growing out of
a cave inhabited by a snake, and beset by reptiles
all about its stem?
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[Rama’s observations herein above are a lesson for all
seekers of Truth. Our anxieties and cares are the
offshoot of our wealth and possessions and they
deplete the life-force share of creative vibratory
elements ether and air, thus effecting the vital organs of
our body (viz. mind and heart) that derive sustenance
from these elements.]
[Temptation begins by capturing your attention. What
gets your attention arouses your emotions. Then your
emotions activate your behaviour, and you act on what
you feel. The more you focus on “I don’t want to
do this,” the stronger it draws you into its web.
Ignoring a temptation is far more effective than
fighting it. Once your mind is on something else,
the temptation loses its power.
Sometimes this means physically leaving a tempting
situation. Walk away from a group that is gossiping. To
avoid being stung, stay away from the bees.

5. 5
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 13
Denunciation of Wealth
Spiritually, your mind is your most vulnerable
organ. To reduce temptation, keep your mind
occupied with God’s Word and other good
thoughts.
If you’re serious about defeating temptation, you
must manage your mind and monitor your media
intake.]
[Redound: Return or recoil; contribute; have an effect
for good or ill.
Sharpster: A swindler; someone who is adept at coning
others; a con artist.
Aconite: Any of various usually poisonous plants of
the genus Aconitum having tuberous roots and
palmately lobed leaves and blue or white flowers.
Wench: A girl or young woman; to associate, esp.
habitually, with promiscuous women.]
*******