• Welcome
• Yoga Teacher
• Yoga Classes
• Yoga Events
• Essays About Yoga
• Yoga Wirral Blog
• Bookings
• Yoga Stick Figures
• Yoga Asana Gallery
• Contact
• Feedback
• Links

The Sanskrit word ‘Kleshas’ literally translates as afflictions of the mind. According the yogic beliefs, the true nature of all beings is perfect, immortal, unchanging – all-one permeating Self. Yet, somehow most humans do not experience their own potential and believe they are without peace, love, perfection. This creates a constant striving state of un-ease and desire for fulfilment.

So, our true Self is perfect, unbounded, infinite satisfaction, yet when interpreted through the human mind, this is experienced as dissatisfaction, inadequacy and lack. Patanjali attributes this paradox to the Kleshas. “The problem, the obstacle to living the state of Self – which is total Sat Chit Ananda, total Truth, Consciousness, Bliss – the obstacles to living that is the Kleshas.”

He counts five Kleshas as follows:

1. Avidya (a - not, vidya – knowledge) – Ignorance, forgetfulness, not knowing. Contrary to ‘Yog Darshan’ or a vision of oneness, avidya is a vision of duality that occurs when pure consciousness is perceived through the limitations of the human system. The form that Pure Consciousness inhabits identifies with other forms either to the exclusion of or separation from its True Self. Avidya is confusion about reality and all the other kleshas stem from this prime ignorance. Avidya is a kind of statement about reality that declares form as the base reality. And the yogi is countering by saying: “Consciousness is the base reality. Forms are forms of consciousness. Forms are emanations of consciousness. The base reality is consciousness and you are That. So you are the base reality. This is Gyan, knowledge.” So, ignorance is like darkness and the antidote to this darkness is light or knowledge, Gyan, but not theoretical knowledge, knowledge experienced through meditation. These intellectual ideas become absorbed into our inner sense of reality through meditation.
2. Asmita – ego or ‘I am-ness’. This occurs when “pure Purusha, pure consciousness knows itself through the vehicle of understanding AS the vehicle of understanding”. For example, we think of our eyes as being our means of seeing, yet when a person is dead, why do their eyes still not see? The mind has identified solely with form and has forgotten its formless essence. The illusion that is asmita, encourages us to try and strengthen our sense of ‘I-ness’ through labelling which improves our status.
3. Raga – attraction to pleasurable experiences follows on from Asmita as the ignorance or Avidya becomes more entrenched. At this level, the human being is totally identified as a form (i.e. the manifested human) and has forgotten it is also a being (a formless essential energy). The human interacts with other forms, perhaps a house, person, a belief system and develops preferences caused by experiencing pleasure. The mind’s rationale encourages the attainment of more forms to repeat the pleasurable experience, reasoning that, ‘if only I had x,y or z I would be happy again’. If repeating the experience doesn’t result in pleasure, then pain, sorrow or disappointment occurs which is known as dukkha.
4. Dvesha – avoidance of pain or Dukkha. Perhaps a person plays the lottery because previously they have won and felt pleasure but the next time they loose, they might develop an aversion to playing again based on their response. Ignorance (avidya) leads to this attraction (raga) and repulsion (dvesha) and all these experiences create samskaras of mental conditioning that governs future actions and reactions.
5. Abhinivesha – fear of death or clinging to life. Being totally identified with ones self as just human (or solid form) and being ignorant of oneself as also a being (eternal, formless) results in a fear of the human self’s inevitable destruction and death.

Meditation can be seen as a process of involution, whereby the kleshas are dissolved back into the primary ignorance from which they came and ultimately ignorance itself is removed. Meditation and yoga can bring the kleshas into our consciousness in a controlled manner by creating space around each thought or emotion, so you have more choice in your reactions and have time to understand and identify wrong thinking.

Kleshas can only be fully removed when the highest Samadhi, Nirbija Samadhi (absorption without seed). These seeds are our samskaras or psychological conditioning present in the causal body.

Discrimination and detachment from the kleshas can be achieved through both meditation and awareness of the psychological patterns that occur to us during meditation – our habitual thinking or deep inner drives. Changing the language can help to re-programme the mind towards liberation. For example, rather than saying, ‘I am in pain’, saying, ‘there is pain’. The person therefore recognises themselves as separate from the pain, as the observer or knower of the pain. This leads to Consciousness or awareness of our thoughts and actions.

Written by Justine Aldersey-Williams 30/09/08

leave feedback...

more articles...