Śivasaṃhitā 4.91

The assertion that bindu is the source of both pleasure (sukha) and suffering (duḥkha) introduces a crucial distinction: bindu is not neutral but produces two opposite experiences depending on the relationship the being establishes with it. For the ordinary being (sāmānya), bindu is the agent of sensory pleasure and its consequent loss (source of duḥkha); for the yogi, the same bindu is the foundation of supreme yoga.

Saṃsthita — ‘established, remaining, residing’ — is the participle of sam-sthā- (to be established, to remain in place). The description of bindu as ‘established’ in the body contrasts with the image of bindu ‘in fall’: natural bindu is latent in the body, not permanently falling. What determines whether it produces pleasure-suffering or liberation is the practitioner’s consciousness in relation to it, not bindu itself.

The equation bindudhāraṇa = yoga parama = sukhaprada (preservation of bindu = supreme yoga = giver of happiness) synthesizes the chapter’s soteriology in three terms: the technical practice (preservation), the resultant state (supreme yoga: union with the Absolute), and the quality of experience (happiness). The promised sukha is not the sensory pleasure that bindu also produces, but objectless happiness (nirālambanānanda), the joy not dependent on external conditions.