Through stillness the supreme state is attained, not by any other cause.

Vasiṣṭha’s insistence is total in its scope: nānyena hetunā — not by another cause, nor for any other reason. There is no alternative hetu — cause, reason, means — to śama. This is not sectarian exclusivity: it does not propose one school against others. It is a phenomenological description: stillness is not one cause among others, but the cessation of the need for causes. Every hetu operates within saṅkalpa: it seeks to produce an effect, transform a situation, attain a state. Śama produces nothing: it reveals that nothing needed to be produced. Therefore, it is not a hetu in the ordinary sense. When Vasiṣṭha says “by stillness one attains,” the “by” (śamāt) is a causal ablative only grammatically; ontologically, it is an ablative of nature: one attains because it is one’s nature, not because stillness is an instrument. The parama-pada — the supreme state — is not a place or condition: it is the recognition that one was always in it, that one never left. Like someone searching for their glasses on their own forehead, upon finding them they do not “attain” vision: they recognize they always saw, only they did not know how. Stillness is not a final cause: it is the cessation of causality as an explanatory framework, the revelation that reality requires no explanation because it is not a problem.

Vasiṣṭha’s insistence is total in its scope: nānyena hetunā — not by any other cause, nor for any other reason. There is no alternative hetu — no cause, reason, or means — other than śama. This is not sectarian exclusivity: it does not propose one school against others. It is a phenomenological description: stillness is not one cause among others, but the cessation of the need for causes. Every hetu operates within saṅkalpa: it seeks to produce an effect, transform a situation, or attain a state. Śama produces nothing: it reveals that nothing needed to be produced. Therefore, it is not a hetu in the ordinary sense. When Vasiṣṭha says “by stillness one attains,” the “by” (śamāt) is a causal ablative only grammatically; ontologically, it is an ablative of nature: one attains because it is one’s nature, not because stillness is an instrument. The parama-pada — the supreme state — is not a place or a condition: it is the recognition that one was always in it, that one never left. Like someone searching for their glasses on their own forehead, upon finding them they do not “attain” vision: they recognize they were always seeing, only they did not know how. Stillness is not the final cause: it is the cessation of causality as an explanatory framework, the revelation that reality requires no explanation because it is not a problem.