29. The strong tendency of the soul towards the spirit of God, which results from a knowledge of the nihility of visibles, and subsidence of the passions, is said to be the effect of the practice of Yoga. 30. But mere knowledge of the inexistence of the world, without subduing the passions, is known as knowledge without practice, and is of no good to its possessor. 31. Consciousness of the inexistence of the visible world, constitutes the true knowledge of the knowable. This habitude of the mind is called the practice of Yoga, and leads one to his final extinction—_nirvána_. 32. The mind thus prepared by practice of Yoga, awakens the intelligence which lay dormant in the dark night of this world, and which now sheds its cooling showers of reason, like dew drops in the frosty night of autumn. 33. As the sage was sermonizing in this manner, the day departed as to its evening service, and led the assembled train to their evening ablutions. They met again with their mutual greetings at the rising beams of the sun after the darkness of night was dispelled. CHAPTER XXIII. THE AERIAL JOURNEY OF SPIRITUAL BODIES. Vasishtha said:— After this conference between the goddess and that excellent lady on that night, they found the inmates of the family fast asleep in the inner apartment. 2. They entered the charnel-house which was closely shut on all sides by latches fastened to the doors and windows, and which was perfumed with the fragrance of heaps of flowers. 3. They sat beside the corpse decorated with fresh flowers and garments, with their faces shining like the fair full-moon; and brightening the place. 4. They then went to the cemetery and stood motionless on the spot, as if they were sculptures engraven on marble columns, or as pictures drawn upon the wall. 5. They shook off all their thoughts and cares, and became as contracted as the faded blossoms of the lotus at the decline of the day, when their fragrance has fled from them. 6. They remained still, calm and quiet and without any motion of their limbs, like a sheet of clouds hanging on the mountain top in the calm of autumn. 7. They continued in fixed attention without any external sensation, like some lonely creepers shrivelled for want of the moisture of the season. 8. They were fully impressed with the disbelief of their own existence, and that of all other things in the world, and were altogether absorbed in the thought of an absolute privation of every thing at large. 9. They lost the remembrance of the phantom of the phenomenal world, which is as unreal as the horn of a hare. 10. What was a _non ens_ at first, is even so a not-being at present, and what appears as existent, is as inexistent as the water in a mirage. 11. The two ladies then became as quiet as inert nature herself, and as still as firmament before the luminous bodies rolled about in its ample sphere.