Śivasaṃhitā 3.42

Seven virtues completing the yogin’s code of conduct: dhṛti (firmness, constancy), kṣamā (patience, forgiveness), tapas (ascetic ardor, transformative heat), śauca (inner and outer purity), hrī (modesty, healthy shame), mati (discriminative intelligence) and gurusevana (service to the teacher). These are not optional moral ornaments: each corresponds to an energetic function within the nāḍī system.

Dhṛti (from root dhṛ-, to hold) is the quality that sustains practice against boredom, pain, and doubt — the three most constant enemies of the sādhaka. Hrī (modesty, refined social consciousness) is perhaps the most undervalued: it is the internal sensor detecting inconsistency between practice and conduct, preventing yoga from becoming mere pose. Mati — not discursive intellect but refined intuition — discriminates between the essential and the accessory.

Gurusevana (service to the teacher) closes the list, not by accident. In tantric pedagogy, the guru is the living channel through which knowledge is transmitted as energy (śaktipāta), not as information. Service is not blind submission but attunement to a higher field of consciousness. The yogin who attains vāyusiddhi — levitation in padmāsana — has integrated these virtues to the point of reconfiguring their relationship with gravity.