Inverted perception, confusion, doubt and mental agitation are difficulties; inconstancy and hundreds of obstacles assail even the seeker of liberation.

Vasiṣṭha taxonomizes the enemy. There is not a single kaṣṭa but a network: viparyaya — seeing the nonexistent as existent, the perceptual error that Patañjali defines as one of the five vṛtti; moha — confusion that clouds discernment; saṃśaya — doubt that paralyzes; laulya — inconstancy, the compulsive jump from one object to another. These four generate “hundreds of obstacles” — not hyperbole, but recognition of the combinatorial multiplicity of mental suffering. The final phrase is crucial: these obstacles pursue even the seeker of liberation. There is no exemption due to good intentions. The spiritual path is not an elevated highway above traffic; it is the same road, traversed with greater attention. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā insists on the same truth: the sage suffers the same world, but does not adhere to the suffering. The kaṣṭa of the seeker is twofold: the world and the pressure of their own expectation to transcend it.