हिन्दी
Prāṇa (the vital force) is certainly superior to hope. Just as spokes on a wheel are attached to the hub, similarly everything rests on prāṇa. Prāṇa works through its own power (i.e., prāṇa is the means as well as the end). Prāṇa gives prāṇa to prāṇa, and prāṇa directs prāṇa to prāṇa. Prāṇa is the father, prāṇa is the mother, prāṇa is the brother, prāṇa is the sister, prāṇa is the teacher, and prāṇa is the brāhmin.
If a person speaks rudely to his father, mother, brother, sister, teacher, or to a brāhmin, people say to him - ‘Shame on you! You have murdered your father. You have murdered your mother. You have murdered your brother. You have murdered your sister. You have murdered your teacher. You have murdered a brāhmin’.
But when they have died, if a person piles their bodies on a funeral pyre and bums them, piercing them with a spear [so that the body burns more quickly], no one will say to him, ‘You have killed your father,’ or ‘You have killed your mother,’ or ‘You have killed your brother,’ or ‘You have killed your sister,’ or ‘You have killed your teacher,’ or ‘You have killed a brāhmin’.
It is prāṇa that is all this. He who sees thus, thinks thus, and knows thus becomes a superior speaker. If anyone says to him, ‘You are a superior speaker,’ he may say, ‘Yes, I am a superior speaker.’ He need not deny it.
