LIFE OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 73
thou extortest money, or whom thou pleasest with thy varied flatteries, shall at last go to hell in thy company. Brahmans, though they say they have abandoned the world, are lovers of wealth, and in quest of it go to die either in Banaras or Kumaun. Some through greed for money twist their matted hair round their heads. Others put on a wooden necklace and go forth shamelessly to the forest. Others again, taking tweezers, pluck out all the hair of their heads. The Brahmans practise hypocrisy in order to plunder the world, and they thus lose their happi- ness both here and hereafter. They make a clay lingam and worship it, but it hath no power for good or evil. Why do men who know that the lingam hath no light in it, light a lamp before it? And why do very foolish and obstinate persons thinking it God fall down before it? Thoughtless one, think of God and quickly cast away thy mind's indecision. They who have studied for a long time in Banaras go at last to die in Bhutan. Having acquired a little learning thou leavest thy home and wanderest from country to country. Thy father and mother thou hast left somewhere; thy wife, thy son, and thy son's wife cannot find thee. No one hath passed beyond the goal of covetousness; it hath beguiled all people.
Thou shavest the heads of some, on others thou imposest fines, and on others again thou puttest wooden necklaces. To one thou teachest spoken, to another written, and to a third other forms of incantations, yet thou conferrest no abiding spiritual knowledge. Some thou showest how to argue on learned subjects, but to all thou settest an example of covetousness in thine efforts to obtain wealth to the best of thine ability. Thou showest no mercy and never pro- pitiatest God, O fool, but worshippest clay. It is on this account thou art doomed to wander begging. Think, thoughtless one, on Him who made men conscious; why deemest thou Him unconscious ? Why call a stone God? Why sellest thou thy precious soul under its value? Thou knowest nothing, great simpleton, and yet thou callest thyself a superior pandit. Diest thou not of shame, O great boaster? In thy pride thou forfeitest thine honour. Thou
