By the mere existence of the mind, all this is established

Here Vasiṣṭha articulates a thesis that some misinterpret as subjective idealism: not that “the mind creates reality” in a voluntaristic sense, but that the experience of an ordered world (vyavasthā) depends on the consciousness that witnesses it. The sattva—existence, reality, luminosity—of the mind is a condition, not an efficient cause. The mountain does not arise from thought, but the “mountain as my experience of a mountain” does not occur without the mind. This subtle distinction avoids both solipsism and naive realism.

Stillness reveals that the world and the mind are co-emergent: where there is an experienced world, there is a witnessing mind; where there is a witnessing mind, there is an experienced world. There is no ontological primacy, only an irreducible correlation. The Yoga Sūtra (IV.24) describes the mind as viśeṣa-darśina ātma-bhāva-bhāvanā-vinivṛttiḥ: the cessation of the tendency to constitute the existence of the self through particular objects. When this tendency ceases, the world does not disappear: it is revealed as nirvikalpa, undetermined by the categories of thought.