Finally, what I have said about the dog's obedience applies also to my union with my body; my body is only properly mine to the degree to which I am able to control it. But here, too, there is a limit, an inner limit; if as a consequence of some serious illness, I lose all control of my body, it tends to cease to be my body, for the very profound reason that, as we say in the common idiom, I am no longer myself.

But at the other extreme, possibly as a yogi I also cease to be myself,..., whereas in the mean position which is that of what we call normal life, such control is always partial, always threatened to some degree.