"It is said that life and the soul are like a river. In the river of life, the waters are the five senses, and its crocodiles and sharks are desire and anger. Making self-control the boat, we must cross the whirlpools that represent repeated births. In the river of the soul, spiritual merits constitute its sacred baths, truth its waters, self-control its shores, and tenderness its waves. The righteous purify themselves by bathing in this river because the soul is sacred, and the supreme merit is the absence of desire." -Mahabharata