Therefore, the pacification of intention is declared the best means.

Vasiṣṭha does not hold back superlatives when it comes to saṅkalpa-śamana: it is śreṣṭham upāyam—the best means, the most exalted. It is not that other means are useless: Patañjali’s yoga, devotional bhakti, ritual karma, speculative jñāna—all purify, prepare, and bring one closer. But they operate within saṅkalpa: the desire for liberation, the intention to serve, the resolve to know. Saṅkalpa-śamana is the means that dissolves the need for means. It is not a subtler technique: it is the cessation of the technical search.

Like a fire that consumes its fuel and then goes out, saṅkalpa-śamana uses the last remnant of intention—“I want to cease intending”—to dissolve itself. This is the paradox that unsettles the rational mind: how can one cease intending through an intention? Vasiṣṭha’s answer is not logical but practical: the intention to cease is not carried out; it exhausts itself. Each time it arises and is seen as saṅkalpa—not as an absolute necessity—it loses force. With each repetition, the interval between intentions lengthens. Not to infinity, but until it is seen that the interval was what is real, and the intentions were intruders. Stillness is not a goal: it is the nature revealed when goals dissolve.