Unlock Inner Peace by understanding 5 Kleshas from Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Vanakkam. Welcome to the Yogic Lens. This video is about understanding a concept called Kleshas explained in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali which are the main causes of mental sufferings, anxiety and pain. If you answer yes to any of the questions that I'm going to ask you now, then you should understand this concept of Kleshas. Is your mind constantly pondering or worrying about things that are happening around you? Is this constant mind clutter a hindrance or obstacle for you to practice meditation or even to concentrate on your job? Are you taking one hour to finish a half an hour job? We all do, right? Then we should understand what Yoga Sutra has to say about the cause of this mental clutter. This will give you the ability to have an insight on your mental afflictions, the ability to categorize it and learn how Yoga plays an important role in attenuating that is weakening the Kleshas, bringing calmness to the mind. Assuming someone asks me a question, who are you? And I reply, I am a teapot, little teapot. What will you say? You will probably be smiling, waiting to hear my full joke, right? But I again say my name is pot and I am a teapot. These are my handles and this is my spout. And I say this again and again. What will you think? What if I really believe that I am a teapot? You will probably think I've gone mad and take me to a mental hospital, right? But in reality, this is what we do in our real life, all of us. When someone asks who you are, I'm an architect, I'm a doctor. Rather, I have gained knowledge in the field of architecture or medicine. We come from a certain country and we associate ourselves as we are that country. I am Indian, I am American. We follow certain code and conduct following a guru or a teacher. Then we call ourselves, I am a Buddhist, I am a Hindu, or I am a Christian. Similarly, we call ourselves as daughter of so and so and the wife of so and so, I am so and so, I am Gita. All of these are attributes and knowledge that you have experienced in this way of life, right? Actually, none of these are ultimately who I am. This is like someone having amnesia. They actually don't know who they are and also don't know what they don't know. Only people around them will realize you have forgotten this, you have forgotten that. This ignorance is the important main klesha called abhidhya, which is the root cause of four other kleshas as per yoga philosophy. The term klesha comes from the root word klish. Klish means pain. So, those mental process or activities that cause pain are called kleshas. There are five kleshas, five mental afflictions which can be represented as a tree. Abhidhya, Asmita, Raga, Dvesha and Abhinivesha. Abhidhya is the ignorance or spiritual forgetting. Asmita is the egoism associated with I-ness. Raga is excessive attachment to an object or person or any activity. Dvesha is a sense of aversion again to objects or persons or any activity. Abhinivesha at a broader level is just fear, fear of losing life or fear of losing anything that you may possess now. Could be job or land or whatever it may be. The five mind afflictions happen at three levels. Intellectual level, emotional level, instinctive level. At the intellectual level, the kleshas Abhidhya and Asmita are operating. This is where one lacks a spiritual knowledge or understanding about oneself. At the emotional level, the kleshas Raga and Dvesha are operating. Raga is the desire and attachment and Dvesha is the hatred and aversion. At the instinctive level, the klesha Abhinivesha operates, clinging to life or fear of losing things that you possess. This klesha makes you a self-centered person. All these mind affliction causes a disharmony in the mind and body and even results in psychosomatic diseases. The mind-body complex is like a balance. When mind is overwhelmed with these kleshas, these mental afflictions, there is an imbalance that happens and the body goes for a toss. To explain this more at a gross level, at a scientific level, the five kleshas represents the activities related to our four lobes of the brain. The frontal lobe and the parietal lobe, which is the seat of logical reasoning and sense of individuality, represents Asmita and Abhidhya. The occipital lobe, which is the seat of visual processing together with the hypothalamus, which sends pleasure and pain, represents the Raga and Dvesha. The temporal lobe, which is the seat of memory, especially the hippocampus, storing past subliminal memories, represents Abhinivesha. When kleshas overpower the brain, the mind-body complex is imbalanced. Yogic practices come handy to keep this in balance. We will go over each and every klesha in detail towards end of this video, so that you can understand and introspect and find out which klesha is overpowering for you, which klesha is creating more mental suffering or agony in your mind. Now, let us dive into the root cause of why these kleshas result in mental agony or suffering. As per Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the mental process and activities that happen in our mind are called vrittis. The main purpose or definition of yoga is to restrain the activities of the mind, that is restrain these vrittis. Please note, I will be using this term vrittis often in this video, which represent mental activities and process that happens in the mind. The kleshas that we are talking about here results in vrittis. You should understand one thing here, not all mental activities cause pain or suffering. These vrittis are of two types, aklishta vritti and klishta vritti. Aklishta vritti are those thoughts that do not cause pain or suffering. For example, I think about I need to get ready to go to the airport to catch a plane. Another thought, I am hungry, so I need to eat. Some mental processing, planning, let me finish studying this chapter before I go for my exam. These kinds of thoughts are not originating from my kleshas. What I mean is, these kinds of thoughts are not originating from my mental afflictions. These are harmless and do not have the ability to create a mental impression, that is called samskaras in the mind. On the other hand, klishta vritti are thoughts that originate in your mind as a result of the five kleshas, five mental afflictions. Let us consider the first example. You are planning to board an airplane to travel somewhere, right? Assume you have recently read about a plane crash, which leads your mind to think, flying is dangerous. What if the plane crashes? What if the plane disappears? These thoughts stem from the klesha called abhinivesha, the fear of losing something. This fear, when it goes over and above, results in a pessimistic mindset. Let us take the second example. When you are hungry, you want to eat food, right? In case your mind starts thinking, there was this restaurant near my house, which has 64 types of dosas in their menu. I feel like having that now. That craving in my mind is so strong that I catch a cab, go to the restaurant and fulfill that desire. This is a resultant of the klesha called raga, which is attachment towards, maybe to food, maybe people or any activity. So, the thoughts that arise due to this attachment has the ability to create an impression in the mind, which are called samskaras. You may ask, what is the problem if there is an impression? Once an impression is created, it fuels the fire. It wants more and more of that, even if you have fulfilled the desire. So, this results in suffering, irrespective of whether you fulfill it or not. Same goes for dvesha, hatred towards an object or a person due to a bad experience that has happened before in your life. We have heard so many stories from our epic and puranas, how this raga and dvesha lead to decline of one's own kingdom, possession and even life. In the epic Ramayana, Ravana has excessive attachment towards Sita, results in a war with Rama, which led to end of his own life. In the epic Mahabharata, the ego, the asmita, Duryodhana had caused destruction to his entire clan, Kauravas. A simple raga, Sita showed towards a deer, resulted in separation from her husband, Rama. These are all big events causing the primary cause of entire purana. What I am trying to say is, look at the effect of these kleshas in your day-to-day life with simple examples. The ragas or simple attachments you have towards a food or people may appear harmless, not like Ravana's raga towards Sita, but they are good enough to cause vrittis in the mind, potential vrittis that can cause impression, samskaras, which will make you do that activity repeatedly, which will result in imbalances in the mind. What happens then? Your ability to achieve chitta vritti nirodhah, that is restrain activities of the mind is compromised, even with these simple mind clutters, which are the branches of the different klesha tree that we saw already. Let us dive deeper into each and every klesha now. Abhidhya. Since abhidhya is the root cause of all other kleshas, it is represented as the trunk of the tree. Yoga sutra defines this abhidhya as understanding an impermanent thing to be permanent, impure as pure, suffering as happiness and non-self as self. To explain this further, vidhya is knowledge and abhidhya is lack of knowledge or we could say ignorance or clouding of already existing knowledge, like amnesia. This knowledge they are talking about is not the kind of knowledge that we obtain by going to school, getting a degree. This is more like uncovering the already existing knowledge, a kind of spiritual forgetting. That is why I like the translation ignorance better than calling it as lack of knowledge, because ignorance is something you can work on to get clarity, right? As per Patanjali, abhidhya, this ignorance is the source of all obstacles. Hence, he calls it as a breeding ground for all other kleshas. Now, let us explore the second klesha Asmita. In one line, if we have to explain Asmita, it is associating or identifying oneself with our skills and intellect, developing a sense of ego. When this ego is not nurtured or validated, it causes mental agony and suffering. I need to give you a real example to explain this better. This is a story about an artist called Raghav, who was highly regarded in his town for creating beautiful art. He received numerous awards and recognitions and egotistically believed he was the only one capable of such work. This went on for decades, but one day, a young man moved his town and began creating art that people appreciated even more. Raghav's sense of identity was shaken. Tourists who once bought from him now favoured the young artist and Raghav no longer is receiving recognition. He felt inadequate. His ego began to consume him, leading to mental suffering. Yogasutra explains that Asmita arises when we mistake our intellect or skills for our true consciousness. Raghav identified himself as his skill. He identified him as the greatest artist on the earth. When that became false and that became no longer true, he felt shattered, as if he has lost his own consciousness. It is very clear that Asmita is a result of its mother klesha, abhidhya, where we confuse the impermanent with the permanent. Now let us look at the third klesha, Raga. Yogasutras define Raga as the attachment towards objects or people or activities that gives us pleasure. Some people get pleasure from fame, some people from money, some people from objects, relationships, etc. You may be thinking, yes, I like a bunch of things. I like food. I love certain people in the world. It is not harming anybody. Then what is the problem? No problem at all. But observe your mind. Observe your vrittis. Is your mind constantly thinking about attaining that object of Raga? Is it like while you are playing chess, how your mind keeps on thinking about the goal? Yes, I may do some planning. Only then I can achieve it, right? Think about it. Are you thinking about it and planning more than what you need to do about it? Are you just exponentially increasing your vrittis and having less concentration on your present work? Yeah, sometimes not able to focus. So are you not in the present? Are you thinking about what is to be achieved in the future all the time? Yeah, sometimes that's how I play this game. So how do you feel after attaining it? My mind relishes the moments of experiencing it again and again. I keep thinking about it. Do you want more? Of course, I want more and more of it. What if you did not achieve this object of interest? Then I am sad, constantly thinking about what can be done to reverse it. So do you understand here? Getting attached to things, whether you achieve it or not, causes mental vrittis. And the main purpose of yoga, the very definition of yoga is chitta vritti nirodaha, restrain the activities of the mind. Indulging in such activities creates more attachment towards those objects or activities and wants us repeatedly to do more of that. Hence it becomes a vicious cycle. Suffering comes to our mind when we are not able to achieve the object of interest or things happen around us lead us to lack of that object or activity. Either case, the mind is full of vrittis. Now let us consider the next klesha, dvesha. Dvesha is a sense of aversion again to objects or person or any activity. This is again very similar to raga. It triggers mental vritti and affects the balance of your mind. Yoga sutra defines dvesha as a result of a bad experience that happened in one's life leading to an aversion to that particular scenario. Assuming you went to a hospital for treatment. Unfortunately, things didn't go well for you and it took longer for that illness to cure. That memory of going through a terrible experience stays in your mind and you develop an aversion to that hospital. It does not mean every person who goes for treatment in this hospital will have the same experience every time. But in your mind, the klesha, dvesha creates an aversion that affects your judgment. In one Tamil movie, there is this guy who has temporary short-term memory loss. He will meet his cousin with whom he had a severe fight and a bad experience earlier. But due to his short-term memory loss, he only remembers the good times he had with him as a kid. So he totally forgets that fight and starts conversing with him with full energy and enthusiasm. The reason I'm giving you this example is, if you don't have that impression of that bad experience in the mind, then your judgment on the present scenario is totally different. The next klesha that we are going to see is an inherent klesha which is inborn with us and stays strong right from the birth to death, which is nothing but abhinivesha. Abhinivesha at a broader level is just fear. Fear of loss, fear of losing life, therefore clinging to life. It could be even fear of losing one's own wealth, job, relationship or whatever you possess. Yoga Sutra defines this klesha as the subtlest form of klesha, which exists even in wise men. Patanjali indicates that every human being has had a taste of death which lingers in your subtler memory. This leads to fear clinging to life. You can see this even in a newborn baby when sometimes the baby shivers as if it's going to fall from a height or someone is attacking her. Another form abhinivesha takes is the fear of losing what you possess. It could be wealth, relationship or health, anything that you have right now. When this klesha is overacting, then we always feel insecure, always in fear. The mind is constantly thinking about how to safeguard what we possess right now. Now coming to the question, do all of us possess all the five kleshas? Yes. These kleshas are present in every one of us, even evolved souls, rishis. Only the nature in which it exists differs. Yoga Sutra 2.4 talks about the nature and intensity of these kleshas and how it exists in our mind. The kleshas can be in four forms. It can be dormant, prasukta. The klesha is present but in a latent form. As I told you earlier, evolved souls also have kleshas but in a dormant form, a state called prasukta. Second, it can be attenuated, tanu. Here klesha is very feeble, not very active. May get active when there is a stimulus. Then it can be alternating with chinna. Here one has two opposite tendencies. The feeling of attraction and repulsion is alternative. Finally, it can be in an expanded state, udharana. Here klesha is fully operative and activities are very apparent. It is very important to know about the intensities of kleshas because what we are aiming to do is attenuating or making the kleshas go dormant and less active in our mind because kleshas originate from our past karma and cannot be eradicated completely unless you have nullified all your baggage of karma. That's when you are close to the state of kaivalya, that is liberation. Now let us see what yoga sutra suggests for managing these kleshas to make it completely dormant or inactive. Yoga sutra 2.1 talks about kriya yoga which has the ability to weaken the kleshas. Here they talk about three important steps to reach this state tapas, svadhyaya and eshwara pranidhana. Let us see this one by one. Tapas. What is tapas? Tapas can be defined as the inner fire that burns your impurities, a kind of a burning desire to reach perfection. It is also the self-discipline that you develop in order to bring a desired result to the mind and the body. Think about how blacksmiths make articles out of iron. They first heat the wrought iron to a high temperature. This will separate all the carbon and other impurities from the iron. Then it becomes very malleable and it can be manipulated to create sculptures and ornaments. Very similar to that there should be an inner fire inside you which will bring discipline to your body and mind and prepare you for the next step. Think about yogis performing 108 surya namaskars. Is it necessary for the health of your body? No, it is a tapas. You do that once in a while to establish that you are able to bring that self-discipline, that control. Other examples I can think, people who walk days together to reach a pilgrimage destination. It is a tapas. People who climb mountains, people who finish full marathon, all these are examples of tapas. It is not just rishis standing in one leg for days together. You may say this is all very abstract. Tell me what I need to do? Where do I start? Right? First and foremost, bringing a self-discipline to your life by following yamas and niyamas as per ashtanga yoga. Then performing asanas to control the body. We can only start from the gross level, right? Then performing pranayamas to remove impurities. I can't think of any better way than starting with performing yoga asanas to start your journey in tapas. Rajas is a guna which brings a lot of vrittis in the mind and performing asanas is one easy way to bring down your rajas. Then practicing pranayama to clear your nadis. Yama and niyamas automatically follow once you start working on your body and breath. The next step given in kriya yoga is svadhyaya. This can be defined as an introspection or self-reflection of one's own mind. What practice will bring the self-reflection? The answer is practicing to control your senses is the first step before going into introspection. Pratyahara is a practice given as the fifth limb of ashtanga yoga that achieves this result. It is a kind of a bridge between connecting or understanding your gross body and your subtle bodies. Then the next step is bringing your mind to a state of one-pointedness which is the sixth limb of ashtanga yoga called dharana. The ultimate final step of kriya yoga is eshwara pranidhana. This is your attitude to surrender to a higher self and not holding on to anything. When there is a sense of surrender to a higher self then there is no pain. This higher self you may call as god, consciousness, paramatma, eshwara or shiva whatever you may call but if you can develop that attitude in the mind where you surrender completely then there is no pain. I am not talking about prayer here. I think you understand that right. What I am talking about is not the prayer where you list all your ragas, where you list all your fears, abhinivesha. No, not that. This is a mindset where you perform your duty then you welcome whatever happens thereafter without anxiety, without looking for the rewards, without looking to fulfill your desires. Hope this long study would have given you an insight into what you should look for when you observe your thoughts. Classify whether it is a krishna vritti or aklishta vritti. If it is krishna vritti then think about which klesha is causing that mental vritti. Thank you for listening till the end. 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