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Unlock Inner Peace by understanding 5 Kleshas from Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
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Welcome, welcome to the yogi cleanse.
This video is about understanding a
concept called clas 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 clas.
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
1 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 clas bringing calmness to the mind. [Music]
[Music]
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 ourself 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 ourself I am a Buddhist. I
am a Hindu or I am a Christian.
Similarly, we call ourself as daughter
of so and so. I'm 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
clasia called avidya which is the root
cause of four other clas as per yoga
philosophy. The term clasia comes from
the root word clich. Clish means pain.
So those mental process or activities
that cause pain are called clas. There
are five glacias, five mental
afflictions which can be represented as a
a
tree. Avidya, Asmita, Raa, Dvesa and
abinvesa. Avidya is the ignorance or spiritual
spiritual
forgetting. Asmita is the egoism associated
associated
withiness. Raa is excessive attachment
to an object or person or any activity.
Data is a sense of aversion again to
objects or persons or any activity.
Abinvesha 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 claas avidya
and asmita are operating. This is where
one lacks a spiritual knowledge or
understanding about oneself. At the
emotional level, the clashas raa and
duesa are operating. Raa is the desire
and attachment and duvesa is the hatred and
and
aversion. At the instinctive level, the
cla abinive operates clinging to life or
fear of losing things that you possess.
This glacia 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
clias 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 glacias represents the activities
related to our four loes of the brain.
The frontal lobe and the parietital lobe
which is the seat of logical reasoning
and sense of
individuality represents asmita and avidya.
avidya.
The occipital lobe which is the seat of
visual processing together with the
hypothalamus which sense pleasure and
pain represents the raga and duvesa. The
temporal lobe which is the seat of
memory especially the hippocampus
storing past subliminal memories represents
represents
abinvesa. When clas overpower the brain
the mind body complex is imbalanced.
Yogi practices come handy to keep this
in balance. We will go over each and
every cla in detail towards end of this
video so that you can understand and
introspect and find out which glacia is
overpowering for you. Which cla is
creating more mental suffering or agony
in your
mind. Now let us dive into the root
cause of why these clas result in mental
agony or suffering. As per yoga sutras
of Patanjali, the mental process and
activities that happen in our mind are called
called
vitis. The main purpose or definition of
yoga is to restrain the activities of
the mind. That is restrain these visi.
Please note I will be using this term
vitis often in this video which
represent mental activities and process
that happens in the mind. The clas that
we are talking about here result in
vitis. You you should understand one
thing here. Not all mental activities
cause pain or suffering. This vitis are
of two types
types
and ai 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'm 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 clas. 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 samscaras in the
mind. On the other hand,
krishna or thoughts that originate in
your mind as a result of the five clas,
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
cla called abinvesa. 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 cla called
raa which is attachment towards um 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
samscaras. 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 data, 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 raa and duesa
lead to decline of one's own kingdom,
possession and even life. In the epic
Ramayana, Rahana has excessive
attachment towards sitha 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
Koravas. A simple Raa Sitha showed
towards dear resulted in separation from
her husband
Rama. These are all big events causing
the primary cause of entire purana.
Right? What I'm trying to say is look at
the effect of these claas in your
day-today life with simple examples. The
ragas or simple attachments you have
towards a food or people may appear
harmless not like raana's raa towards
sitha but they are good enough to cause
vitis in the mind potential vitis that
can cause impression
impression
samscaras which will make you to do that activity
activity
repeatedly which will result in
imbalances in the
mind what happens then your ability To
achieve chitta viri nurodha that is
restrain activities of the mind is
compromised even with these simple mind
clutters which are the branches of the
different cla tree that we saw
already. Let us dive deeper into each
and every cla. Now avidya since avidya
is the root cause of all other claas it
is represented as the trunk of the tree.
Yoga sutra defines this avidity as
understanding an impermanent thing to be
permanent, impure as pure, suffering as
happiness and non-self as self. To
explain this further, vidya is knowledge
and avidya 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 uh spiritual
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 Patanali
avidya this ignorance is the source of all
all
obstacles. Hence he calls it as a
breeding ground for all other
clas. Now let us explore the second
clasia. Asmita in one line if you 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 Ragab 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 to his town and began creating art
that people appreciated even more.
Raav's sense of identity was shaken.
Tourist who once bought from him now
favored the young artist and Raghav no
longer is receiving recognition. He felt
inadequate. His ego began to consume him
leading to mental suffering.
Yoga sutra explains that asmita arises
when we mistake our intellect or skills
for our true consciousness. Ragav
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.
consciousness.
It is very clear that asmita is a result
of its mother clasia avidya where we
permanent. Now let us look at the third
cla raa. Yoga sutras define raa 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 vitis. Is your
mind constantly thinking about attaining
that object of Raa? 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 vitis 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'm 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 vertis
and the main purpose of yoga the very
definition of yoga is chitta viti
nirodha restrain the activities of the
main 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
bris. Now, let us consider the next cla.
Da is a sense of aversion again to
objects or person or any activity. This
is again very similar to raa. It
triggers mental viti and affects the
balance of your mind. Yoga sutra defines
data as a result of a bad experience
that happened in one's life leading to
an aversion to that particular scenario.
Assuming um you went to a hospital for treatment.
treatment.
Unfortunately, things didn't go well for
you and it took longer for that illness to
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 cla
duvesa creates an aversion that affects your
your
judgment. Um in one Tamil movie there is
this guy who has temporary short-term memory
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 clasia that we are going to see
is an inherent clasia which is inborn
with us and stays strong right from the
birth to death which is nothing but
abinvesa. Abinvesa 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
clasia as the subtlest form of cla which
exist even in wise men. Patelli
indicates that every human being has had
a taste of death which lingers in your subtler
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. Right? Another
form abinves takes is the fear of losing
what you
possess. It could be wealth,
relationship or health. Anything that
you have right now. When this clasia 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 claas? Yes,
these claas are present in every one of
us even evolved souls,
rishies. Only the nature in which it
exists differs. Yoga sutra 2.4 4 talks
about the nature and intensity of these
clatas and how it exists in our mind.
The clas can be in four forms. It can be
dormant. Prasupta. The clasia is present
but in a latin form. As I told you
earlier evolved souls also have clas but
in a dormant form a state called
prasupta. Second it can be attenuated
tanu. Here clatia is very feeble not
very active may get active when there is a
a
stimulus then it can be alternating with
china here one has two opposite
tendencies the feeling of attraction and
repulsion is
alternative finally it can be in an
expanded state udarana here claia is
fully operative and activities are very
apparent it is very important Important
to know about the intensities of clas
because what we are aiming to do is
attenuating or making the clas go
dormant and less active in our mind
because clatas 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 kyalia that is liberation.
Now let us see what yoga sutra suggests
for managing these clas to make it
completely dormant or
inactive. Yoga sutra 2.1 talks about
kria yoga which has the ability to
weaken the clas. Here they talk about
three important steps to reach this
state. Tapas, suadhya and ishwara
pranidana. Let us see this one by one.
Tapus. What is tapus? Tapus 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-disipline 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 rot 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. Right? 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 sura namaskars.
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-disipline, that
control. Other examples I can think um
people who walk days together to reach a
pilgrimage destination. It is a tapus.
People who climb mountains, people who
finish full
marathon, all these are examples of
tapas. It is not just rishies 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 nyamas as per ashtanga
ashtanga
yoga. Then performing asas to control the
the
body. We can only start from the gross
level. right than performing pranayyamas
to remove impurities. I can't think of
any better way than starting with
performing yoga asas to start your
journey in
tapas. Rajas is a gona which brings a
lot of britis in the mind and performing
asas is one easy way to bring down your
rajas. Then practicing pranayyama to
clear your
nadis. Yama and nyamas automatically
follow once you start working on your
body and
breath. The next step given in kria yoga is
is
suadhya. 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. Pratahhara is a practice
given as the fifth limbo 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
onepointedness which is the sixth limb
of ashtanga yoga called dharana. The
ultimate final step of kria yoga is ishwara
ishwara
pranidana. 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, ishwara 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'm
not talking about prayer here. I I think
you understand that right? What I'm
talking about is not the prayer where
you list all your ragas where you list
all your fears abinves.
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 or Akrishtaviti. If it is
Krishna then think about which glacia is
causing that mental
vi. Thank you for listening till the
end. If you like similar content on yoga
philosophy, consider subscribing to my
channel. Let us meet in our next video.
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