February 16, 2026
ceto hi vāsanāmātraṁ tadabhāve paraṁ padaṁ
tattvaṁ saṁpadyate jñānaṁ jñānamāhur vicāraṇaṁ (38)
RĀMA asked:
O sage, if the cessation of the movement of prāṇa is liberation, then death is liberation! And all people attain liberation at death!
VASIṢṬHA replied:
O Rāma, when prāṇa is about to leave the body, it already makes contact with those elements with which the next one is to be fashioned. These elements are indeed the crystallisation of the vāsanās (psychological conditioning, memory-store, past impressions and predisposition) of the jīva, the reason why the jīva clings to those elements. When the prāṇa leaves the body it takes with it all the vāsanās of the jīva.
Not indeed until these vāsanās have been destroyed will the mind become no-mind. The mind does not abandon the life-force till self-knowledge arises. By self-knowledge the vāsanās are destroyed and thus the mind, too; it is then that the prāṇa does not move. That indeed is the supreme peace. It is by self-knowledge that the unreality of the concepts concerning worldly objects is realised. This puts an end to vāsanās and to the link between the mind and the life-force. Vāsanas constitute mind. Mind is the aggregate of the vāsanās and naught else; if the latter cease, that itself is the supreme state. Knowledge is the knowledge of the reality. Vicāra or enquiry itself is knowledge.
Total dedication to one thing, restraint of prāṇa and the cessation of the mind – if one of these three is perfected, one attains the supreme state. The life-force and the mind are closely related like a flower and its fragrance or sesame seed and oil. Hence, if the movement of thought in the mind ceases, the movement of prāṇa ceases, too. If the total mind is one-pointedly devoted to a single truth, the movement of mind and therefore of life-force ceases. The best method is by enquiring into the nature of the self which is infinite. Your mind will be completely absorbed. Then both the mind and the enquiry will cease. Remain firmly established in what remains after that.
When the mind does not crave for pleasure, it is absorbed into the self, along with the life-force. Ignorance is non-existence: self-knowledge is the supreme state! Mind alone is ignorance when it appears to be a reality; the realisation of its non-existence is the supreme state. If the mind remains absorbed even for a quarter of an hour, it undergoes a complete change for it tastes the supreme state of self-knowledge and will not abandon it. Nay, even if the mind has tasted it for a second, it does not return to this-worldly state. The very seeds of saṁsāra (world-appearance or cycle of birth and death) are fried. With them, ignorance is dispelled and the vāsanās are utterly pacified; one who has reached this is rooted in satva (truth). He beholds the inner light and rests in supreme peace.