Mind is a bundle of Vasanas (subtle desires). Through Vasanas bondage is caused. Destruction of Vasanas will bring freedom. The mind will attain quiescence like a gheeless lamp if the Vasanas are destroyed.
Just as cloth is nothing but a bundle of threads, the mind is nothing but a cluster of Vasanas or past impressions and subtle desires that persistently lurk within the sub-conscience.
When the threads are pulled out one by one, where is cloth at all? When the Vasanas are burnt with their seeds the mind vanishes into the Immortal Seat of Brahman.
The Upanishad says, "when the senses do not work and stand together with the mind, and when the intellect is still, that, they say is the Highest State".
The daily selfish actions of the Jiva add to the stock of these Vasanas and thus the embodied existence becomes unbroken, and the wheel of birth and death rolls on ceaselessly.
The emptying of these Vasanas demands a twofold counter-activity by the Jiva. The first one is to stop the adding of newer Vasanas and the second is the destruction of the existing ones.
The first purpose is served by beholding the Self in all beings, by rendering selfless service to other fellow beings, by devotion to the Deity and by severe concentration of the mind.
The second one is effected when the mind is completely thinned out and when the Self is realised.
When the threads of Vasanas are destroyed the cloth of the mind also disappears from existence. The Ambrosia of Brahman is drunk deep. The soul is drowned in the ocean of joy. The Wisdom-sun rises and the Immortal Life is lived. The Divine Existence, the Almighty Satchidananda is attained.
In this state supreme silence alone is. The mind becomes quiescent due to the exhaustion of Prarabdhas even as a lamp unfed by oil gets naturally extinguished.
The zenith of being is the cessation of thought, change and action. It is a getting of everything at once, the living of the infinite life, the highest freedom, the most supreme blessing, the greatest happiness and limitlessness of Knowledge which is not a possession but an existence, not a means of Knowing but the very being of Knowledge-Absolute.
~ Swami Krishnananda