Articles and writings to expand
the practice of yoga beyond the mat.
The Kleshas
July 2009
Yoga practice asks the practitioner to connect with the core of the heart and therefore the core of the self. Increasingly, this is becoming lost in a yoga world that supports the physical prowess without the additional recognition of an internal knowing and transformation. However, the structure of yoga provides the opportunity for radical self-exploration, understanding and transformation.
Yoga philosophy states that there are six “poisons” or symptoms of discontent:
• Kama –desire
• Krodha – anger
• Moha – delusion
• Lobha – greed
• Mada – envy
• Matsarya – sloth
These poisons, if left unexplored and unconscious, lead to unskilled actions or rather reactions and cause suffering or duhkha. The causes of suffering, or kleshas, are the ways that we react to the six poisons listed above.
The kleshas, outlined by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, are:
• Avidya – ignorance; not seeing things as they are; being unaware of reality as it really is
• Raga – attachment; desire to repeat pleasurable experiences or feelings
• Dvesa – aversion; leaning away from unpleasurable experiences or feelings
• Asmita – “I”; the connection to the ego; construction of the self as separate and unique
• Abhinivesa – fear of death / loss of the self; desire to live
The path of yoga suggests that by exploring the kleshas and their role in our lives, we can decrease the experience of the six poisons and therefore reduce our duhkha or suffering.
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali - translation with commentary by Chip Hartranft
Chapter 2: The Path to Self-Realization
(excerpted verses 2-11, 16)
1. Yogic action has three components: discipline, self-study and orientation toward the ideal of pure awareness
2. Its purposes are to disarm the causes of suffering and achieve integration
3. The causes of suffering are: not seeing things as they are, the sense of “I,” attachment, aversion and clinging to life
4. Not seeing things as they are is the field where the other causes of suffering germinate, whether dormant, activated, intercepted or weakened
5. Lacking this wisdom, one mistakes that which is impermanent, impure, distressing or empty of self for permanence, purity, happiness and self
6. The sense of “I” ascribes selfhood to pure awareness by identifying it with the senses
7. Attachment is the residue of pleasant experience
8. Aversion is the residue of suffering
9. Clinging to life is instinctive and self-perpetuating, even for the wise
10. In their subtle form, these causes of suffering are subdued by seeing where they come from
11. In their gross form, as patterns of consciousness, they are subdued through meditative absorption
16. But suffering that has not yet arisen can be prevented
