Verse 6 of Prakaraṇa 8 describes a crucial stage in the nirvitarka practice, a state achieved through the negation of discursive thought. The image of the mind as a sphatika – a crystal – is particularly evocative, suggesting a profound clarity and stillness, free from the distortions of conceptualization. This ‘without radiance’ state, nirbhāsam, is not simply emptiness, but rather a potent, unblemished awareness. The yogi, within this condition, doesn’t merely think of paramapurusha – the Supreme Self – but directly realizes himself as it. This immediate identification, without intermediary cognition, is the core of the saṃnyāsa path, a radical severance from the illusory identification with the phenomenal world. This experience, powerfully rendered, foreshadows the later emphasis in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras on the importance of samādhi – a state of profound concentration – as a means to transcend the limitations of the mind and realize the underlying unity.