Śivasaṃhitā 5.159

This verse marks a decisive threshold: the complete suspension of mental modifications. The text does not describe forceful suppression but a natural cessation that follows thorough purification of the subtle body. When the nāḍīs are fully blocked to outward dissipation, the thinking principle stills itself, and in that stillness the yogi is born.

The word nirodha (suspension, restraint) echoes Patañjali’s famous definition of yoga as yogaś cittavṛttinirodhaḥ. Here, however, the Śivasaṃhitā frames this cessation through the lens of nāḍī physiology rather than purely psychological terms, grounding the mental event in the subtle body’s energetic architecture.

Historically, this convergence of nāḍī theory and cognitive cessation reflects the synthetic character of the Śivasaṃhitā, which draws from both Haṭha and Rāja Yoga frameworks. For practitioners, the verse offers a somatic marker of progress: when energy no longer leaks through unpurified channels, the mind’s restlessness loses its fuel, and gnosis — described as indivisible and pure — becomes accessible.