44. Who has never ascended on any of the first, second or succeeding stages of yoga, and is dead in the like state of ignorance in which he was born.
45. Vasishtha replied:—The ignorant man that has never attained to any of the states of yoga in his whole life, is carried by the current of his transmigration to rove in a hundred births, until he happens by some chance or other, to get some glimpse of spiritual light in any one of them.
46. Or it may be that one happens to be dissatisfied with the world, by his association with holy men; and the resignation which springs thereby, becomes the ground of one of the stages of his yoga.
47. By this means, the man is saved from this miserable world; because it is the united voice of all the sástras, that an embodied being is released from death, no sooner he has passed through any one stage of yoga (or union with his maker).
48. The performance of a part only of some of the stages of yoga, is enough for the remission of past sins; and for conducting the expurgated person to the celestial abode in a heavenly car. (The wicked man turning from his wickedness, and doing what is right and saveth his soul).
49. He enjoys the Parnassian groves of Sumeru in company with his beloved, when the weight of his righteous acts, outweighs those of unrighteousness.
50. The yogi, released from the trap of his temporal enjoyments, and has passed his allotted period; expires in due time, to be reborn in the houses of yogis and rich men, or in the private mansions of learned, good and virtuous people.
51. Being thus born, he betakes himself to the habitual practice of the yoga of his former birth; and has the wisdom to begin at once at the stage to which he was practiced, and which was left unfinished before (hence arises the difference in the capacities of youth).
52. These three stages, Ráma, are designated the waking state; because the yogi retains in them his perception of the differences of things, as a waking man perceives the visible to differ from one another.
53. Men employed in yoga acquire a venerable dignity (in their very appearance), which induce the ignorant to wish for their liberation also (in order to attain to the same rank).