As water remains in water and attains unity with those waters, so difficulty, through the mind of difficulty, attains unity but does not cease.

The metaphor of water in water—employed in other texts to delineate the union of jīvātman with paramātman—is herein inverted to depict a pathological fusion. The kaṣṭa-buddhi—the mind of difficulty—does not observe kaṣṭa from without; rather, it dissolves into it, loses its contour, and identifies with it entirely. The ekatā—unity—thus attained is a unity with suffering, not with reality. Crucially, na ca śāmyati—it does not cease. Water in water is stable because both are water; kaṣṭa within kaṣṭa-buddhi is stable because both are confusion. Deliverance lies not in further immersion but in viveka: the recognition that the sufferer and the suffering are equally moha, and that pathological unity is as unreal as pathological separation. Śama—cessation—demands that one emerge from the water and recognize oneself as the one who was never wet.