repeatedly to sink into terrible hell.  I have thus told thee the philosophy of the Sankhyas that excellent science by which all things have been correctly ascertained.  Ascertaining the nature of Purusha and Prakriti in this way, the Sankhyas attain to Emancipation.  I have also told thee of the systems of those others that are conversant with the great principles of the universe.  I shall now discourse to thee on the science of the Yogins.’”

SECTION CCCXVII

“Yajnavalkya said, I have already spoken to thee of the science of the Sankhyas.  Listen now to me as I truly discourse on the science of the Yogins as heard and seen by me, O best of kings!  There is no knowledge that can compare with that of the Sankhyas.  There is no puissance that compares with that of Yoga.  These two ordain the same practices, and both are regarded as capable of leading to Emancipation.  Those men that are not blest with intelligence regard the Sankhya and the Yoga systems to be different from each other.  We, however, O king, look upon them as one and the same, according to the conclusion to which we have arrived (after study and reflection).  That which the Yogins have in view is the very same which the Sankhyas also have in view.  He who sees both the Sankhya and the Yoga systems to be one and the same is to be regarded as truly conversant with the topics or principles that ordain the universe.  Know, O king, that the vital breaths and the senses are the chief means for practising Yoga.  By only regulating those breaths and the senses, Yogins wander everywhere at their will.[1655] When the gross body is destroyed, Yogins endued with subtile bodies possessed of the eight Yoga attributes of Anima, Laghima, Prapti, etc., wander over the universe, enjoying (in that body) all kinds of felicities, O sinless one.  The wise have, in the scriptures, spoken of Yoga as conferring eight kinds of puissance.  They have spoken of Yoga as possessed of eight limbs.[1656] Indeed, O king, they have not spoken of any other kind of Yoga.  It has been said that the practices of Yogins excellent as these are (for their results), are of two kinds.  Those two kinds, according to the indications occurring in the scriptures, are practices endued with attributes and those freed from attributes.  The concentration of the mind on the sixteen objects named, with simultaneous regulation of the breath, O king, is one kind.  The concentration of the mind in such a way as to destroy all difference between the contemplator, the object contemplated, and the act of contemplation along with subjugation of the senses, is of another kind.  The first kind of Yoga is said to be that possessed of attributes; the second kind is said to be that freed from attributes.[1657] Then, again, Regulation of the breath is Yoga with attributes.  In Yoga without attributes, the mind, freed from its functions, should be fixed.  Only the regulation of the breath which is said to be endued