his soul, he lives steadily on
himself. Turning off decrepitude and pain and pleasure, he sleeps in
comfort. Casting off this human body he attains to (other) forms
according to his pleasure. While one is enjoying the sovereignty that
Yoga bestows, one should never fall away from devotion to Yoga.[36] When
one, after adequate devotion to Yoga, beholds the Soul in oneself, one
then ceases to have any regard for even him of a hundred sacrifices
(Indra).[37] Hear now how one, habituating oneself to exclusive
meditation, succeeds in attaining to Yoga. Thinking of that point of the
compass which has the Sun behind it, the mind should be fixed, not
outside, but in the interior of that mansion in which one may happen to
live. Residing within that mansion, the mind should then, with all its
outward and inward (operations), behold in that particular room in which
one may stay. At that time when, having deeply meditated, one beholds the
All (viz., Brahman, the Soul of the universe), there is then nothing
external to Brahman where the mind may dwell. Restraining all the senses
in a forest that is free from noise and that is uninhabited, with mind
fixed thereon, one should meditate on the All (or universal Brahman) both
outside and inside one's body. One should meditate on the teeth, the
palate, the tongue, the throat, the neck likewise; one should also
meditate on the heart and the ligatures of the heart!'[38]
"'"The Brahmana continued, 'Thus addressed by me, that intelligent
disciple, O slayer of Madhu, once more asked me about this religion of
Emancipation that is so difficult to explain. How does this food that is
eaten from time to time become digested in the stomach? How does it
become transformed into juice? How, again, into blood? How does it
nourish the flesh, the marrow, the sinews, the bones? How do all these
limbs of embodied creatures grow? How does the strength grow of the
growing man? How occurs the escape of all such elements as are not
nutritive, and of all impurities separately? How does this one inhale and
again, exhale? Staying upon what particular part does the Soul dwell in
the body? How does Jiva, exerting himself, bear the body? Of what colour
and of what kind is the body in which he dwells again (leaving a
particular body)? O holy one, it behoveth thee to tell me all this
accurately, O sinless one,'--even thus was I interrogated by that learned
Brahmana, O Madhava. I replied unto him, O thou of mighty arms,
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