Titikṣā is the ability to deal cheerfully and objectively with external circumstances and events that are beyond our control. Subtle addition: Physical discomforts are also external circumstances seen from the perspective of consciousness. Seeing it this way already helps enormously to objectify discomforts, and to be able to objectify their status as dependent, relatively true.

Titikṣā is developed by willingly enduring small difficulties without dwelling on them or complaining about them. This is a qualification for emotional growth towards freedom. If we are always dwelling on the pinpricks of life, there is no mental space to focus on something more important than seeing that empirical reality is neutral, and not meant to plague us. Likewise, there will be no space to keep the real goal in mind, freedom from hardship.

But equanimity also means remaining internally unmoved by compliments.

Freedom is seeing that I have nothing to do with the hardships or praise of and for the individual. Titikṣā is therefore not yet freedom, but it is a huge step, because it makes the mind calm, equanimous and neutral, which is as good as freedom. That is how qualifications work, they imitate freedom. Only a mind that is as good as free can see that the mind is mithyā (not what it seems to be). Someone who pays too much attention to hardships experiences them as real, and is stuck in them.

Hardships can simply be viewed mindfully and named as what they are. They do not have to be denied. Someone who shrugs his shoulders will be less bothered by them than someone who makes a drama out of them. There is no need to constantly look for a remedy, or a cause or culprit (blame). This makes the tapas (pain) easier to bear. Gradually one learns neither to seek pleasure nor to avoid pain, since both are desires that lead to pain.

Titikṣā is the fourth of six (ṣaṭka) attainments (sampatti), beginning with śama (śamādi), which together form the third main qualification of the sādhana catuṣṭaya. The other four are śama (calming mind control), uparama or uparati (cessation of non-functional action in the world), and śraddhā (trust in the texts and teacher).

Titikṣā is also called sahana.