Tasya Prasanta Vahita Sanskarat - 3/10

This sutra echoes the quintessence of the Upanishadic thought and the mouth piece of the Vedanta. The result or benefit of 'Nirodha ksana cittanvaya' is the peaceful flow of the mind. The mind flows peacefully or in other words peace flows into the mind. The effect of restraining - Nirodha - of the speed, restlessness, haphazardness, rush and fastness of the mind is Prashantata. Once the mind slows down all these causes of miseries disappear. That state is the womb of happiness and cheerfulness. The flow of the mind is like a stream without a ripple. All the rush of the senses towards its object of enjoyments are due to the speed mind. All our common experience show that relaxed and quiet mind is stripped of all desires and wants. A meditative mind is a desire less mind since the ultimate 'want' peace follows from 'Prashanta vahita'. A beautiful term used succinctly by sage Patanjali.

The journey from fastness to calmness of the mind is through the dynamic transformation of the metamorphic change brought in by the Nirodha parinama. We find answer to the age old challenging question of the humanity that 'why and how of morality and ethics', in this sutra. The speed and uncontrolled mind is the unethical and immoral due to the unbridled rush of the senses. The restrained and tamed mind is the right vehicle for the onward journey towards the SILENCE. Siddhartha transformed into Buddha by this change in the flow of the mind. Similarly Ratnakar to Valmiki.

Restraining is not suppression since the end product is Prashanta Citta. It is a samskara which has to be carried out in order to improved the quality of thinking, ultimately the living values. That is how Yoga becomes a science and art of value based living.