(The mind dwells in the brain which shares the various fortunes of breathing; therefore the suppression of breath tends also to the subjection of the mind. Swedenborg).
37. There are milder means of pacifying the mind, as the cooling showers of rain set down the dust of the earth; and yet the Hatha-Yoga, attempts to restrain it by stopping the breath, as it were to prevent the rising of dust, by means of a breathless calm.
38. Ignorant men who want to subdue the mind, by prescriptions of the Hatha-Yoga or bodily restraints; are like those silly folks, who want to dispel the darkness by black ink instead of a lighted lamp. (Painful bodily practice, is no part of Rája or spiritual Yoga).
39. Those who attempt to subdue the mind by bodily contortions, strive as vainly as they, who wish to bind the mad elephant with a rope of grass or straws.
40. Those rules which prescribe bodily practices, instead of mental reasoning and precepts, are known as the patterns of Hatha-Yoga, and misleading men to dangers and difficulties. (Because the mind alone governs the mind, and bodily austerities have ruined many bodies and killed many men also; and the correspondence between the states of the mind and lungs, has not been admitted in science).
41. Wretched men like beasts have no rest from their labour, but wander in dales and woods, in quest of herbs and fruits for their food.
42. Ignorant men who are infatuated in their understandings, are timid cowards like timorous stags; and are both dull-headed and weak-bodied, and languid in their limbs (by incessant toil).
43. They have no place of confidence anywhere, but stagger as the distrustful deer in the village; their minds are ever wavering between hopes and fears, as the sea water rising and falling in waves.
44. They are borne away like leaves fallen from a tree, by the current of the cascade gliding below a water-fall; and pass their time in the errors of sacrificial rites and religious gifts and austerities, and in pilgrimages and adoration of idols.
45. They are subject to continued fears, like the timid deer in the forest, and there are few among them, who happen by chance to come to the knowledge of the soul. (Most men are betaken by the exoteric faith).