Sankalpa
सङ्कल्प (saṅkalpa)
Resolve - a vow formed whole in the heart, planted once and trusted, rather than argued with daily. Read in English
संकल्प — हृदय में पूरा बना व्रत, जो एक बार बोकर भरोसे से निभाया जाता है, तर्क से नहीं।
Sankalpa is will gathered to a point: sam, together, kalpa, to form. Ritual practice begins with one - a statement of who is acting and to what end - and the yoga-nidra tradition plants one in the settled mind, phrased in the present tense, as if already true.
A sankalpa differs from a goal. Goals live in the future and negotiate; a sankalpa is a direction assumed now. Not I will become patient, but the quieter, stranger I am patience learning its own name.
The discipline is to form it carefully - once, in words few enough to survive memory - and then stop debating it. Planted things grow by being left in the ground. Reviewed hourly, they are merely dug up.