Through the exhaustion of the vāsanās, the mind attains transparency and rectitude

The term kṣaya — exhaustion, consumption — is deliberate. Vasiṣṭha does not use nāśa (destruction) nor prahāṇa (deliberate abandonment). Vāsanās are not destroyed by an act of will — will itself is a vāsanā — nor are they abandoned through ethical decision. They are exhausted, like a fire consumes its fuel when it is no longer fed. The fuel of vāsanās is identification: each time a tendency arises and is attributed to an “I” that possesses it, it is nourished with reality. In nistaraṅga stillness, vāsanās may still appear — they are deep karmic impressions — but they no longer find a subject to cling to. They arise and dissipate like clouds in a clear sky, leaving no residue. The mind is then nirmala — stainless — not through moral purification, but because the subject-object duality no longer stains perception with its projections. And it is ṛju — straight — because it does not bend toward the past nor project itself into the future; it rests in immediacy without distortion.

The term kṣaya — exhaustion, consumption — is deliberate. Vasiṣṭha does not use nāśa (destruction) nor prahāṇa (deliberate abandonment). Vāsanās are not destroyed by an act of will — will itself is a vāsanā — nor are they abandoned through ethical decision. They are exhausted, like a fire consumes its fuel when it is no longer fed. The fuel of vāsanās is identification: each time a tendency arises and is attributed to an “I” that possesses it, it is nourished with reality. In nistaraṅga stillness, vāsanās may still appear — they are deep karmic impressions — but they no longer find a subject to cling to. They arise and dissipate like clouds in a clear sky, leaving no residue. The mind is then nirmala — unstained — not through moral purification, but because subject-object duality no longer soils perception with its projections. And it is ṛju — straight — because it does not curve toward the past nor project itself toward the future; it rests in immediacy without distortion.