There exist various difficulties made of pleasure and pain, and their counterforce is only obtained through constant practice.

Here emerges the therapeutic core of the prakaraṇa. The enumeration of kaṣṭa includes not only evident pain, but also pleasure — a warning that Patañjali would turn into an axiom: sukha and duḥkha are both viveka requiring discrimination. Pleasure becomes an obstacle when it converts into anubandha, into a chain of compulsive repetition. Vasiṣṭha insists there is no magical solution: the pratipakṣa — the opposing force, the specific remedy — is cultivated. The word labhyate implies gradual acquisition, not sudden revelation. This dismantles the fantasy of instant satori as an operative strategy. Abhyāsa is workshop work: each time the mind gets lost in kaṣṭa, it is brought back to the object of contemplation. It does not matter how many times it escapes. What matters is how many times it returns. The haṭha tradition of Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā and that of Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā extend this logic to the body: the physical obstacle is counteracted with its postural inverse. The principle is singular: nature is corrected by its opposite.