Yoga Sutra 3.43 the mind functioning outside the body
Sūtra III.43
The Great Bodiless is a mental process (vṛtti) functioning exterior (to the body), and not imaginary; from this comes dwindling away of the covering of the light
A process of the mind (functioning) outside the body is the concentration (dhāraṇā) called Bodiless. If it comes to be (functioning) in some outside objects only as a process of a mind (still) wholly fixed in the body, it is called Imaginary Bodiless; but when it is the external process of a mind which has itself become external and unconnected with the body, it is Not-Imaginary. By the Imaginary, they practise for the Not-Imaginary, which is the Great Bodiless.
The Great Bodiless is a mental process (vṛtti) exterior (to the body), and not imaginary; from this comes dwindling away of the covering of the light. A process of the mind outside the body, which is produced resting on a definite object in another place, purely voluntarily, by the power of samādhi, is the concentration (dhāraṇā) called the Great Bodiless.
If it comes to be in some outside object only as a process of a mind wholly fixed in the body, in that case it is called Imaginary, because it is produced by a purposive imagination (saṅkalpa) of a mind fixed in the body, but when as a result of the power of samādhi causing loosening of the cause of the bodily ties it is the external process of a mind which has itself become external and unconnected with the body, it is said to be Not-Imaginary. With the Imaginary, the one who attains the exterior mental process is still limited by being restricted to the body; with the Not-Imaginary, his experience is not limited by restriction to the physical body as a basis.
Both of them are called Bodiless inasmuch as there is (in both) the idea ‘outside’, but the one which is Not-Imaginary is called the Great Bodiless.
By the Imaginary one, they practise for the Not-Imaginary Great Bodiless; practising continuity of the Imaginary meditation, they accomplish (finally) the Not-Imaginary.
By the Great Bodiless, yogin-s enter other bodies. By that concentration of the Great Bodiless, the covering of the mind-sattva, whose nature is light, is thinned away – the covering which is the triad of the taints and the karma-s and their fruition, rooted in rajas and tamas.