When the dissolution of the mind is achieved, peace arises without doubt.

Manonāśa: the very term unsettles seekers, resonating as it does with annihilation. Yet Vasiṣṭha, much like the Haṭha Pradīpikā (IV.30-31), does not speak of destruction but rather of the dissolution of a fundamental error. The mind as a separate entity, as the author of thoughts, as the proprietor of experiences—such a mind never existed. What dissolves is the illusion of its autonomy, not the cognitive function that enables perception, discrimination, and action. The text likens the liberated mind to the sky after rain: the clouds dissipate, yet the sky has “gained” nothing it did not already possess. Śānti is not a novel state but the recognition that there was never any disturbance within the substratum itself. When Patañjali speaks of nirodha in I.2, he proclaims not the end of the mind, but the cessation of the erroneous identifications that render it the apparent owner of what it merely witnesses.