Raja-Yoga

THE FIRST STEPS. 2$
him to be shut up in the top of a very high tower.
This was done, and the minister was left there to
perish. He had a faithful wife, however, and at night
she came to the tower and called to her husband at the
top to know what she could do to help him. He told
her to return to the tower the following night and bring
with her a long rope, a stout twine, a pack thread, a
silken thread, a beetle, and a little honey. Wondering
much, the good wife obeyed her husband, and brought
him the desired articles. The husband directed her to
attach the silken thread firmly to the beetle, then to
smear his horns with a drop of honey, and to set him
free on the wall of the tower, with his head pointing
upwards. She obeyed all these instructions, and the
beetle started on his long journey. Smelling the honey
before him he slowly crept onwards and onwards, in
the hope of reaching it, until at last he reached the
top of the tower, when the minister grasped he beetle,
and got possession of the silken thread. He told his
wife to tie the other end to the pack thread, and after
he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated the pro
cess with the stout twine, and lastly with the rope.
Then the rest was easy. The minister descended from
the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape.
In this body of ours the breath motion is the "silken
thread,"
and laying hold of that, and learning to control
it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and
from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the
rope of Prdna, controlling which we reach freedom.
We do not know anything about our own bodies;