Markandeyapurana 40.14

40.14

upasargairmahāghorairāvartante punaḥ punaḥ /
prāvṛtya kambalaṃ śuklaṃ yogī tasmānmanomayam //

Therefore the yogi, having clad himself with a mental white blanket, should cast his mind prone on supreme Brahma, and meditate on him. A yogi should always be intent on religious meditation, he should eat sparingly, he should subdue his senses. The yogi should contemplate in his head the subtle conditions of the seven objects, viz., earth &c.; he should contemplate the subtle earth, until he comprehends its subtlety.[9] He deems the earth to be his soul, and he quits its bonds. Moreover he quits the subtle taste in water,[10] and also the form in the fire; and he likewise quits touch in the wind, as he bears the subtle form in mind; and he quits the subtle activity of the sky, and likewise its sound. When he enters with his mind into the mind of all created things, his mind bearing a mental subtle condition of them becomes subtle also. Likewise the man, conversant with religious devotion, on attaining to the intellect of all creatures, gains and relinquishes the most perfect subtlety of intellect. For the man conversant with religious devotion, who relinquishes these seven subtle things after having thoroughly comprehended them, there is no retrogression, O Alarka! The soul-cognisant man, after fully seeing the subtlety of these subtle conditions of the seven objects, then utterly abandoning it may proceed to supreme bliss. And towards whatever created thing he evinces feeling, O king! to that very thing he becomes attached, and he perishes. Therefore the corporeal being, who after perceiving the mutually-associated subtle things abandons them, may gain supreme bliss. Having conjoined these very seven subtle things, O king! passionlessness towards created and other things tends to the final emancipation from existence of the man cognisant of the entities.[11] When he becomes attached to perfumes and other delights, he perishes; he again reverts to human nature apart from Brahma. Whatever subtle created thing- the yogi desires, after transcending the subtle conditions of these seven objects, in that very thing he meets his extinction, O king! He meets his extinction in the bodies of gods or Asuras, or of Gandarvas, Nāgas, or Rākṣasas; nowhere does he gain any attachment.

Ailments arising from illusive vision,[3] from hearing, and. from the deity,[4] and mental aberration,[5] and enthusiasm[6]—these five are roots of bitterness which tend to embarass the religious meditations of yogis. The ailment arising from illusive vision is such to a yogi because in it appear Vedic matters, poetic matters, science and the mechanical arts without end. The ailment connected with hearing is so-called because he perceives the meanings of sounds in all their completeness, and he receives sound from thousands of yojanas. The wise call that ailment one from the deity, as in the case of a madman, when like a god he sees all around and in the eight directions. When the yogi’s mind wanders without support through his own fault by reason of his fall from all the rules of good custom[7]—that is well known as mental aberration. When the seething whirl-pool[8] of knowledge like a whirl-pool of water engulphs the mind—that ailment is called enthusiasm. All beings of divine origin, when their religions meditation is destroyed by these great and terrible ailments, revolve again and again.