Despite their variations, the Upaniṣads all share the concept of a cycle of infinitely recurring births and deaths in which the nature of a rebirth depends upon a person's actions in life. The only way to escape this cycle of time is through knowledge of brahman, the infinite, which can be gained through slow and painstaking mastery of meditation under the guidance of a teacher. Each Upaniṣad had a different method for teaching this knowledge, but all used the basic imageries of the sacrifice to show the ways in which bodily processes and processes of awareness allowed the student to conceive of the sacrifice as going on inside his body. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3:1:8–10, Aśvala the hotṛ (a priest trained in sacrifice and sacrificial recitation), asks Yājn̄avalkya the teacher about how many deities will be used by the Brāhmaṇ priest to protect the sacrifice that day. He answers, "One, the mind." Yajn̄avalkya argues that this is possible because the mind is without limit, the all-gods are without limit, and the world one gains by it is also limitless. Thus the deities become identified with mind itself—and by implication the Brāhmaṇ priest, the controller of the sacrifice, can earn his authority through the machinations of his own mind. Finally, in discussing the hymns that are used in the sacrifice, Aśvala asks what these hymns are with respect to the "self-body" (ātman). Yājn̄avalkya replies that the hymn recited before the sacrifice is the out-breath, the hymn that accompanies the sacrifice the in-breath, and the hymn of praise the inter-breath. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad puts the relationship between self, body, and cosmos eloquently: "This self is the honey of all beings, and all beings are the honey of this self. The radiant and immortal person in the self and the radiant and immortal person connected with the body [here, also referred to as ātman ]—they are both one's self. It is the immortal; it is Brahman, it is the Whole" (2:5:9).