however, that can renounce desire, can certainly drive away all kinds of
woe. Desire is, indeed, ignorance and darkness and hell in respect of all
creatures, for swayed by it they lose their senses. As intoxicated
persons in walking along a street reel towards ruts and holes, so men
under the influence of desire, misled by deluding joys, run towards
destruction. What can death do to a person whose soul hath not been
confounded or misled by desire? To him, death hath no terrors, like a
tiger made of straw. Therefore, O Kshatriya, if the existence of desire,
which is ignorance, is to be destroyed, no wish, not even the slightest
one, is either to be thought of or pursued. That soul, which is in thy
body, associated as it is with wrath and covetousness and filled with
ignorance, that is death. Knowing that death arises in this way, he that
relies on knowledge, entertaineth no fear of death. Indeed, as the body
is destroyed when brought under the influence of death, so death itself
is destroyed when it comes under the influence of knowledge.'

"Dhritarashtra said, 'The Vedas declare the emancipating capacity of
those highly sacred and eternal regions, that are said to be obtainable
by the regenerate classes by prayers and sacrifices. Knowing this, why
should not a learned person have recourse to (religious) acts?'[3]

"Sanat-sujata said, 'Indeed, he that is without knowledge proceedeth
thither by the path indicated by thee, and the Vedas also declare that
thither are both bliss and emancipation. But he that regardeth the
material body to be self, if he succeeds in renouncing desire, at once
attaineth emancipation (or Brahman). If, however, one seeketh
emancipation without renouncing desire, one must have to proceed along
the (prescribed) route of action, taking care to destroy the chances of
his retracing the routes that he hath once passed over.'[4]