Then one is no longer troubled by the pairs of opposites.

The verse

Tato dvandva-anabhighātaḥ — "from that, no affliction by the pairs of opposites." This short sutra completes the three-verse sequence on asana that runs from 2.46 through 2.48. It states a result rather than a technique: once posture has become genuinely steady and comfortable, achieved by the release of effort and the settling of attention described in 2.47, the practitioner is no longer disturbed by dvandva — the pairs of opposites.

What dvandva means here

Dvandva literally means "pair" or "couple," and in the commentarial tradition it is glossed with concrete examples: heat and cold, pleasure and pain, honor and dishonor, hunger and satisfaction. These are the ordinary fluctuations of embodied life that normally pull attention back and forth, disturbing whatever stillness has been cultivated. The claim of the sutra is that a posture rooted in genuine sthira-sukham — not gritted-teeth endurance, but real steadiness paired with ease — builds a kind of resilience that extends beyond the cushion, so these fluctuations stop being able to derail concentration the way they once did.

A capstone, not a new technique

Structurally, this verse is best read as the conclusion of the asana sequence rather than as an isolated claim. Verse 46 defines the goal (steady and comfortable), verse 47 explains the method (releasing effort, resting attention on the boundless), and verse 48 states the traditional fruit of that combination (freedom from disturbance by opposites). Vyasa's Bhashya treats this progression as a template that repeats throughout the text: define a state, explain how it is reached, then describe what follows from its mastery — a pattern seen again with pranayama in the sutras that immediately follow.

The gradual, cultivated nature of the claim

It is worth being precise about what kind of claim this is. The text presents it as a traditional teaching about the fruit of sustained mastery, not as an empirical guarantee available to anyone after a few sessions of sitting. The word tatah, "from that" or "thence," implies a causal relationship built up over time through the disciplined cultivation described in the two preceding verses, not an instantaneous switch that flips the moment one sits down.

What to look for over time

This verse gives a long-term marker rather than an immediate instruction, and it is best used that way: as something to notice rather than something to chase. As your seated practice becomes more genuinely steady and comfortable — not forced, not endured, but settled in the way 2.46 and 2.47 describe — you can periodically ask whether ordinary discomforts elsewhere in life seem to have slightly less grip on your attention. Has a cold room, an uncomfortable chair, an unwelcome comment, or a minor physical ache become marginally easier to be with, without needing to immediately fix or escape it?

A short concrete practice

At the end of a seated session, once you have spent time cultivating steadiness and ease as described in the previous two entries, take one minute to deliberately introduce a small, tolerable "pair of opposites" — hold your seat through a slightly uncomfortable stretch, an itch you choose not to scratch immediately, or the natural coolness of the room. Notice your reaction: is there the same reactive pull to fix or escape it that you might notice elsewhere in the day, or does the settledness cultivated in the sitting extend, even slightly, to this small discomfort? This is not a test to pass or fail in one sitting; it is a way of tracking, across weeks and months, whether the practice is doing the work the verse describes.

Keeping expectations honest

Because this is a gradual, cultivated capacity rather than an instant effect, it is worth resisting the temptation to treat any single sitting as proof of failure or success. The tradition frames this as the fruit of sustained practice, and treating it that way protects both the integrity of the teaching and the practitioner's patience with their own progress.

Where this sits in the wider text

Some translators note that this same idea of freedom from the pairs of opposites recurs elsewhere in Indian thought describing the qualities of an accomplished practitioner, and that Patanjali is drawing on an established idea rather than introducing an entirely novel claim. Feuerstein and other scholars of the sutras point out that this recurring language of the dvandvas situates Patanjali's asana teaching within a broader tradition concerned with equanimity as the mark of spiritual accomplishment, connecting this brief, technical-sounding verse about posture to much larger questions the text takes up later regarding detachment and steadiness of mind under all circumstances.

Reading it as a guarantee of invulnerability

The most common misreading turns this verse into a promise of total emotional invulnerability — that mastering a seated posture will make a person permanently indifferent to all of life's ups and downs, as though physical practice alone produces complete equanimity. That overstates both the scope and the immediacy of the claim. The sutra is specific to the fruit of mastering asana as defined in the two verses before it, within the broader eight-limbed structure Patanjali is building, not a general promise about physical exercise producing psychological invulnerability.

Treating it as instantaneous

A second misreading assumes the freedom from disturbance described here arrives quickly, perhaps after a single satisfying sit. The word tatah, "from that," describes a result following sustained cultivation of the specific qualities named in 2.46 and 2.47, not an immediate byproduct of any comfortable posture on any given day.

The corrective

It is more faithful to the text to present this as the tradition's own account of a gradual outcome tied to real mastery of a specific practice, worth watching for patiently over time, rather than as a promised or clinically demonstrated effect of asana practice in general.