unable to comprehend how all this can happen.  The causes also that thou hast assigned for the unity and the multiplicity of Akshara and Kshara I have almost forgotten in consequence of the restlessness of my understanding.  I therefore, desire to hear thee once more discourse to me on those same incidents of unity and multiplicity, on him who is knowing, on what is destitute of knowledge, on Jiva-soul, Knowledge, Ignorance.  Akshara, Kshara, and on the Sankhya and the Yoga systems, in detail and separately and agreeable to the truth.

“’Vasishtha said, I shall tell thee what thou askest!  Listen however, to me, O monarch, as I expound to thee the practices of Yoga separately.  Contemplation, which constitutes an obligatory practices with Yogins, is their highest puissance[1619].  Those conversant with Yoga say that Contemplation is of two kinds.  One is the concentration of the mind, and the other is called Pranayama (regulation of breath).  Pranayama is said to be endued with substance; while concentration of mind is unendued with it.[1620] Excepting the three times when a man passes urine and stools and eats, one should devote the whole of his time to contemplation.  With-drawing the senses from their objects by the aid of the mind, one possessed of intelligence, having made oneself pure, should agreeably to the two and twenty modes of transmitting the Prana breath, unite the Jiva-soul with That which transcends the four and twentieth topic (called Ignorance or Prakriti)[1621] which is regarded by the wise as dwelling in every part of the body and as transcending decay and destruction.  It is by means of those two and twenty methods that the Soul may always be known, as heard by us.  It is certain that this practice of Yoga is his whose mind is never affected by evil passions.  It is not any other person’s.  Dissociated from all attachments, abstemious in diet, and subduing all the senses, one should fix one’s mind on the Soul, during the first and the last part of the night, after having, O king of Mithila, suspended the functions of the senses, quieted the mind by the understanding, and assumed a posture as motionless as that of a block of stone.  When men of knowledge, conversant with the rules of Yoga, become as fixed as a stake of wood, and as immovable as a mountain, then are they said to be in Yoga.  When one does not hear, and smell, and taste, and see; when one is not conscious of any touch; when one’s mind becomes perfectly free from every purpose; when one is not conscious of any thing, when one cherishes no thought; when one becomes like a piece of wood, then is one called by the wise to be in perfect Yoga.  At such a time one shines like a lamp that burns in a place where there is no wind; at such a time one becomes freed even from one’s subtile form, and perfectly united with Brahma.  When one attains to such progress, one has no longer to ascend or to fall among intermediate beings.  When persons like ourselves say that there has been a complete identification