Reduce Suffering by Learning About the Kleshas
Reduce Suffering by Learning About the Kleshas
Pratanjali describes the Kleshas in his Yoga Sutras, Chapter 2, Sutra 3. The Kleshas are mental blocks which prevent enlightenment. I believe anyone can experience enlightened moments; I know that I have. They are moments of deep peace, serenity and presence. The Kleshas are afflictions or negative mental states or patterns which prevent us from experiencing a peaceful state and instead cause suffering, usually unconsciously.
The Kleshas in Hindu philosophy are
ávidyā - Ignorance (in the form of a misapprehension about reality)
asmitā - egoism (in the form of an erroneous identification of the Self with the intellect)
rāga - attachment
dveṣa - aversion
abhiniveśāḥ - fear of death (which is derived from clinging ignorantly to life)
I have been studying and practicing yoga and Ayurveda as a lifestyle for some time now. I’ve had a hard time putting into words why I feel so calm and peaceful in the midst of these uncertain times. I don’t think of myself as super human or anything more special than anyone else so I couldn’t put my finger on why I am having a great year while most of the world seems to be lost in the confusion and anxiety.
Sunday, it came to me through a conversation with my partner. I have been moving away from thoughts related to the Kleshas for some time. It’s hard work and not particularly fun work either. I’ll go through the Kleshas and share a little bit of what my experiences have been like and practices which have helped me. The Kleshas also show up in Buddhism and Hindu philosophy as well as Sutras of Pratanjali and the different qualities are all lower frequency spaces to exist in.
Let’s take Avidya. Vidya means true knowledge, a deep inner knowing and higher wisdom. The “a” makes it negative or the opposite. We all have a perception and interpretation of the world based on our past experiences, expectations and what we believe. We all have our own versions of reality. Your reality may be very different than my reality. When we are in avidya we believe our thoughts are true, our perceptions are real and what we individually believe is ‘right’. The lack of wisdom here is very difficult to overcome because it isn’t about what we need to learn, it is about what we need to unlearn. According to yoga what we see and a lot of what we think is based on illusion (maya) from a spiritual perspective.
For me, this drawing back of the veil began probably before this life. I began to remember in this incarnation why I came back to the planet once I embraced the reality that the way I perceive things is only my perception. My perception isn’t right or wrong, it simply is. I started to have spiritual experiences and meditations where the result was mindset and reality shifts. When new information resonated I didn’t feel the need to overly question it; I trusted my intuition and inner knowing. I didn’t need to go on a never-ending research hunt to accept my previous thoughts, perceptions and beliefs had been an illusion from ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is cosmic laws. Energy expands and contracts. Energy moves from subtle to gross. An example of ultimate reality I like to refer to is eventually the earth will collide with the sun. This took me on a search for universal laws which I’ll probably write about later.
Eventually I came to terms with and remembered I am a spiritual being having a human experience. I remembered I am a daughter of the divine. When you unlearn so much that you realize you can’t trust any lower frequency thoughts it shifts you into this vidya state of being.
I thought this was the main goal of yoga for some time. I believed it was my job to help others remove the veil of illusion and come back home to themselves and the oneness of humanity. This is just one of the five Kleshas, the matrix is real.
Asmita is about allowing the sense of ‘I’ to become the most important thing in life. When our identification of the self with the intellect consumes us. Asmita is often describes as egoism. This is when the small self of the ‘id’ is running the show of your life.
For me this is a VERY memorable morning when I woke up out of the illusion of ego. My son was 10 weeks old exactly and woke up and knew I had been previously running my life based on my desires which were not my true self’s desires but impressions placed on me and embraced in this life’s experience and seeking comfort. It is embarrassing to admit what it was, … find a nice man who would work hard to provide me money so I could stay home, get high, be a house-wife and take care of babies. It was not the worst thing, and it was still a little devastating to discover. I guess you would call it a divine intervention since I woke up and new I had been living based on ideas, beliefs, social pressure and selfish desires.
Raga could be described as attachment, lust and or unhealthy desire. I would describe this as attachment to ideas, beliefs, expectations, people, etc. Being overly attached handicaps us spiritually. The clinging can narrow our view.
Once I woke up out of my egoism I discovered my attachments. I got new ones and again had to become someone who could release my expectations and attachments. I remember meeting my twin flame and thinking we would run off together and teach couples about true love. That did not happen. The attachments I felt about him were so strong and from multiple lives. By moving away from my expectations and attachments with him I realized I could not plan on things or hope for things excessively in the future. He helped me value the present moment- the practice of yoga? We learned other important lessons, concepts, ideas and practices. The most relevant to this article and possibly the most valuable was my attachment to outcomes.
Dveṣa is a little trickier for me to see the clear one time lesson which really impacted my reality. As soon as I wrote that sentence it came to me, thank you universe. There were four trusted friends who ganged up on me in my mid twenties. Heart breaking and angry I went to my first transconsciousness therapist. She told me to forgive and release them for they were simply reflecting their own issues onto me. I wrote each of them a letter to release the resentment.
From a young age the word hate always felt too strong to use. I realized through my release of expectations and attachments that the belief outer circumstances are responsible for unhappiness or happiness is silly. I am responsible for how I feel and it’s my job to take care of myself including my emotions and reality. Hatred is such a low vibration I find it hard to carry resentment. When you don’t forgive someone it hurts you.
Now for the good stuff! Abhiniveśāḥ is fear of death. This is usually an unconscious fear around dying. It is normal and plagues humans. It is really the fear of the unknown. Death is simply a transition. Our energy and essence can’t just disappear poof! We go somewhere, maybe the body stops breathing and it isn’t the big scary end I was taught growing up. I know this is not my one and only life, I can feel it. There are too many spiritual phenomenons and experiences to prove my inner knowing.
I simply reframed the way I thought about transitioning and also did meditations on dying. Once I was lost, in fear and illusion, now I am found. In my past I was blind and now I can see. It’s a beautiful life in a very special world which exists in the present moment and at the same time all potential possibilities are happening in space and time. In the now there is no fear, no worry, no overwhelm.
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Love,
Neve