This mind without support is stilled by the supportless.

Nirālambana —without support, without an object— describes both the method and the result. The ordinary mind is sālambana: it requires objects—sensory, mental, conceptual—to keep itself occupied, to feel that it exists. Every object is an ālambana—a support, a prop—upon which the mind builds its continuity. Without objects, the ordinary mind panics: it seeks distractions, conjures memories, projects fantasies. But this very search is the problem.

Vasiṣṭha prescribes nirālambana not as a deprivation but as a recognition: the mind never needed support. It is like the bird that, believing it needs land beneath its feet, never spreads its wings; or like the fish that seeks water without seeing it is already swimming in it. The nirālambana that brings quiet is the very nirālambana of the mind: its own nature, free of objects. It is not that objects disappear; they are seen as appearances within the mind, not as external supports.

The Haṭha Pradīpikā (IV.49) describes samādhi as nirālambana-prajñā—wisdom without support—where there is neither a subject that knows nor an object known, only knowing itself, free of determination. This is not darkness but pure luminosity: just as space does not need to rest on anything to be space, the quiet mind does not need to rest on any object to be mind. It simply is, and in that being, there is śānti.