Question and answer 26

But restraining the breath only ever brings the mind to a temporary rest, not to its actual end — so how can it possibly serve an enquiry whose entire aim is that final end?

The scriptures themselves say realising the Self has two paths: the eightfold yoga, and the eightfold knowledge. So bind the mind, first, through one limb of that yoga — prāṇāyāma, say, or kevala-kumbhaka — and don't stop there. Go on, step by step, through the further disciplines — pratyāhāra and the rest — and in the end you will certainly reach the direct realisation of your own true nature, which is exactly the fruit enquiry itself is after.

Since the binding of the breath serves only as a means to the temporary dissolution of the mind and not as a means to its [permanent] destruction, how is this a means to enquiry, whose whole purport lies precisely in the destruction of the mind?

Since the scriptures state that the disciplines proper to attaining realisation of the Self fall into two divisions — the eightfold yoga and the eightfold knowledge — the mind, having been bound through one limb of that yoga, namely prāṇāyāma or kevala-kumbhaka, if one does not stop there but goes on practising, in due order, the further disciplines such as pratyāhāra, will certainly, in the end, attain the direct realisation of one's own nature which is the very fruit of enquiry.