46. So on seeing a hill or tree or passenger, that bears no enmity or friendship to it, the mind remains equally indifferent towards the same, and without any change in its disposition as it is perceived by us.
47. Again the mind is sweetened (pleased) on relishing the sweets, and embittered by tasting the bitter. It becomes fond of the sweet, and averse to whatever is sour and bitter and unpalatable.
48. So when a ravenous beast comes in the sight of a dispassionate Yogi, its envious nature is changed to dispassionateness, and it desists from doing him any injury. (So says Patanjali, “Good company turns the wicked to goodness”).
49. The malicious being freed from his malice, in the company of the even minded stoic, desists from the doing of any harm, to any one; as the indifferent wayfarer has no business to break the straggling branches and trees growing on the way side, which the rude rustics are apt to lop off and cut down (for the making of their fuel).
50. But the savage beast being removed from the side of the Yogi, resumes its ravenous nature again, in the company of the rapacious and wild beasts of the forest.
51. Hence it was that the envious beasts of the forest, the tigers, lions and bears; as also the reptiles and creeping insects of earth, did not molest the sedate body of the sage, so long as they lurked and crept about it.
52. The reason why the body was not reduced to the dust of the earth is, because the silent conscience that there dwells in common, in all existent bodies of animals, vegetables and minerals, and abides in them as in the person of a dumb creature; would not allow them to injure the innocent body of the sage lying flat on the ground.
53. The spiritualised body of the Yogi, is seen to move about on earth, like the shadow of something floating on the water.
54. Therefore the spiritual body of the sage, which was rarefied above the elemental bodies by virtue of his spiritual knowledge, became quite incorruptible in its nature.
55. Hear me tell you another reason, Ráma! that it is the want of oscillation which is the cause of destruction, as it is the vibration or breathing of the heart which is the cause of life.