[CHAPTER XXVI.]
Relation of the Cause of Longevity.
Argument.—Reflection and Restraint of Respiration leading to the tranquillity of the soul, and the steadiness of the spirit, conducing to long life and felicity on earth.
BHUSUNDA continued. This is the tranquillity of the mind, which I have attained by degrees, by means of my meditation of the nature and course of the vital breath in myself.
2. I sit quiet at all times, with view fixed at the movement of my breath; and never stir a moment from my meditative mood, though the mount Meru may shake under me.
3. Whether I am awake or asleep, or move about or remain unmoved in my seat, I am never at a loss of this meditation even in dream, nor does it slide a moment from my steadfast mind. (For who can ever live without breathing, or be unconscious of its ceaseless course, or that the breath is both the cause and measure of life).
4. I am always calm and quiet and ever steady and sedate, in this ever varying and unsteady world; I remain always with my face turned inward in myself, and fixed firmly in the object I have at heart. (This is the soul—the life of the life situated in the heart).
5. The breeze may cease to blow, and the waters may stop to flow but nothing can prevent my breathing and meditation of them, nor do I remember ever to live without them. (The gloss explains by metonymy the air to mean the planetary sphere, which rests and moves in it, the waters as the ever flowing [Sanskrit: váyu] currents of rivers, and the samádhi [Sanskrit: jyotichakraha] meditation as composed of breath and thought, to be in continuous motion and resistless in their course).
6. By attending to the course of my inhaling and exhaling breaths of life, I have come to the sight of the soul (which is their life), and have thereby become freed from sorrow by seeing the prime soul of all souls. (i.e. The highest soul of God).