What's Stopping You?

Had a friend over this weekend who was asking me about Hinduism again.

I find that while it is very easy to explain the highlights of the religion, most of the religious texts are a bit....verbose, and poor choices for quoting to friends when I am attempting to explain the casually-serious/seriously-casual attitude the religion has about itself.

In such times, I turn to the Kama Sutra, and then find myself reading long passages to myself, and wondering at how little humanity has changed over the ages. These universal truths then become interesting ideas for science fictions stories to me, since I firmly believe that the greatest value of science fiction is its ability to present humanity, extracted from the familiar. Even in a world completely unlike our own, our humanity is familiar.

Here's the excerpt that I'm stuck on today:
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And this part ends with a verse:

'The man who is ingenious and wise, who is accompanied by a friend, and who knows the intentions of others, as also the proper time and place for doing everything, can gain over, very easily, even a woman who is very hard to be obtained.'