Mbh 12.254.1a

"'"Vyasa said, 'There is a wonderful tree, called Desire, in the heart of a man. It is born of the seed called Error. Wrath and pride constitute its large trunk. The wish for action is the basin around its foot (for holding the water that is to nourish it). Ignorance is the root of that tree, and heedlessness is the water that gives it sustenance. Envy constitutes its leaves. The evil acts of past lives supply it with vigour. Loss of judgment and anxiety are its twigs; grief forms its large branches; and fear is its sprout. Thirst (after diverse objects) that is (apparently) agreeable forms the creepers that twine round it on every side. Excessively greedy men, bound in chains of iron, sitting around that fruit-yielding tree, pay their adorations to it, in expectation of obtaining its fruit.[1096] He who, subduing those chains, cutteth down that tree and seeks to cast off both sorrow and joy, succeeds in attaining to the end of both.[1097] That foolish man who nourishes this tree by indulgence in the objects of the senses is destroyed by those very objects in which he indulges after the manner of a poisonous pill destroying the patient to whom it is administered.[1098] A dexterous person, however, by the aid of Yoga, forcibly teareth up and cutteth with the sword of samadhi, the far-reaching root of this tree.[1099] One who knows that the end of all acts undertaken from only the desire of fruit is rebirth or chains that bind, succeeds in transcending all sorrow. The body is said to be a city. The understanding is said to be its mistress. The mind dwelling within the body is the minister of that mistress whose chief function is to decide. The senses are the citizen that are employed by the mind (upon the service of the mistress). For cherishing those citizens the mind displays a strong inclination for acts of diverse kinds. In the matter of those acts, two great faults are observable, viz., Tamas and Rajas.