4. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, whereby the mind has its vibration and how it is repressed, that I may thence learn how to govern the same.
5. Vasishtha answered:—Know Ráma, as whiteness is concomitant with snow, and oil is associated with sesamum seeds; and fragrance is attendant upon flowers and the flame is coexistent with fire.
6. So Ráma, the mind is accompanied by its fluctuations hand in hand, and they are virtually the one and the everything, though passing under different names by fiction.
7. Of the two categories of the mind and its pulsation, if either of these comes to be extinct, the other also has its extinction, as the properties of a thing being lost, their subject likewise ceases to exist; and there is no doubt of this.
8. There are two ways of extinguishing the mind, the yoga or hypnotism and spiritual knowledge; of these the yoga is the suppression of mental powers, and knowledge is the thorough investigation of all things.
9. Ráma asked:—How is it possible sir, to suppress the vital airs, and to attain thereby to that state of tranquility, which is fraught with endless felicity?
10. Vasishtha replied:—There is a circulating air breathing through the lungs and arteries of the body, as the water flows through the veins and pores of the earth, and which is called the vital breath or life.
11. It is the fluctuation of this air, that impels and gives force to the internal organs of the body, and which is designated by the various names of prána, apána &c., according to their positions and motions (all of which are but varieties of the vital breath).
12. As fragrance resides in flowers and whiteness in the frost, so is motion the flavour of the mind, and is one and the same with its receptacle—the mind.
13. Now the vibration of this vital breath, excites the perception of certain desires and feelings in the heart; and the cognitive principle of these perceptions is called the mind.