(On being told by the brahmana, “All these things are not yours, hence there is no meaning in renouncing them”, Sikhidhvaja said:) Surely, this hermitage is everything for me. Right now, it is mine. I shall abandon that, too. (Thus resolved, Sikhidhvaja cleansed his heart of the very idea that the hermitage was his:) Surely, now I have completely renounced everything!
THE BRAHMANA (CUDALA) repeated: Surely, all these too are not yours. How then do you renounce them? There is
something which you have not renounced and that is the best part of it. By renoun- cing that, attain freedom from sorrow.
SIKHIDHVAJA said:
If these, too, are not mine, then I shall abandon my staff, the deer skin, etc., and my cottage, too.
VASISTHA said:
So saying, he sprang up from his seat. While the brahmana was passively looking on, Sichidhvaja collected whatever there was in the cottage and made a bonfire of it. He threw away his rosary: “I am freed from the delusion that the repetition of a mantra is holy, and so I have no need for you”. He reduced the deer skin to ashes. He gave away his water pot (kamandalu) to a brahmana (or threw it into the fire).
He said to himself, “Whatever is to be renounced must be renounced all at once and forever, otherwise it expands once again and is gathered once again. Hence, I shall once and for all burn everything up.”
Thus having resolved, Sikhidhvaja, who had decided to give up all activities sacred and secular, collected all those articles that he had used till then and burnt them all up.