by Yogi Ananda Viraj (Eugene P, Kelly, Jr.)
Introduction
The role of the klesas (afflictions) in yoga is a central one. According to yoga, freedom is freedom from the afflictions. However, yogic freedom (kaivalyam) is not only escape from the dissatisfaction that results from the afflictions but a “positive” condition of authentic satisfaction. The yogi views the presence of dissatisfaction (duhkha) as symptomatic of a fall from freedom. This dissatisfaction gives rise to an investigation which seeks its causes and therefore its remedy. What the yogi discovers through this investigation is the klesas.
The yogis say that freedom from dissatisfaction is realized when the fragmenting impulses of the consciousness of (citta) are restricted. The second sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras states that yoga is the “cessation of the modifications of the consciousness of” (yogas-citta-vrtti-nirodhah I,2).1 Through this cessation or restriction, the seer or pure consciousness (purusa) abides in its own form.2 The dualistic awareness of the citta or consciousness of is characterized by the divisions of subject/object, I/that, and the consciousness of discrete entities in general. In short, the view that the world is a world of separate entities or substances is peculiar to the thought-world or mind-made3 reality of the consciousness of. We have also referred to this world as the “conventional world order.” This is the orthodox view of ordinary life,
In contrast, the “view” of the seer (drastuh) or purusa is pure, i.e. unmixed. This vision is the vision of wholeness or unity. It is not a unity of parts to whole but a partless unity. It is in this sense that the condition of yogic freedom is said to be solitary (kevala), or isolated (kaivalyam).4What is one cannot be two; it must therefore be alone, isolated, pure. Unity is undivided awareness or pure consciousness. It is the integral order of the world as lived and not the segregated order of the world as thought. The job of collecting and organizing sensory data into discrete entities belongs to the mind (manas), not the pure consciousness. Mind organizes disparate entities into a more or less coherent perspective for the sake of a self, or more specifically, for the sense of being a self (asmita). The self, I, is seen as the center around which life is structured. We call this “my life.” However, yogis view this mind-made organizing process as inherently frustrating. In fact, the effortful quest of the citta or divisive awareness is ultimately the perverse drive toward a realization of unity (purusa-artha).5 This quest of the citta is rooted in a fundamental error (viparyaya), known as avidya or ignorance. Literally the word “avidya” means non-knowing. The word “knowing” refers to the power of pure consciousness (citi-sakti) to animate life in an integral or wholistic order.
Avidya, one of the five klesas, is the presupposition of all cognitive activity or thought (citta-vrtti). The world according to ignorance pits I against that, subject against object, self against other. The world according to knowledge, or the true nature of pure consciousness (drastuh-svarupa), is world without division, subjects, selves, objects and discrete events, that is,a de-alienated world. Without access to the undivided whole, the world according to ignorance is unsatisfactory. It is a world of change from pleasure (sattva) to pain (rajas) to confusion (tamas) and back, an unending cycle of repetition and incompleteness. It is a world of ups and downs in which there is no rest or lasting satisfaction. According to yoga, this is an inferior way of being in the world. The alternative is freedom.
Our primary error lies in mistaking the subjects, objects, and experiences of the divided world of the consciousness of for the primordial unity and satisfaction that belongs to the unified world ordered by the power of pure consciousness (citi-sakti). Such an error entails the frustrating attempts to impose mind-made order on a world of seeming chaos. Chaos is the condition of a self crying out for security. The only security to be had by a self, an I, is to be had on its own terms. As the self is discrete and alienated, so must be the things of the world. The move is to unite them into an order which satisfies the survivalist demands of self-nature or I-am-ness. Out of this drive is born politics, economics, dogma, and disease. By contrast, the life of the yogi is a life of ongoing surrender to the order that mind forgot, to a “divine” unified order. This order eludes the person whose life is bent on conceiving of self, other, and situation as so many discrete things. Dissatisfaction (duhkha) is intrinsic to this conception.
The life lived in the authentic order (rta)6 is in no sense competitive with other possible orders. Oneness cannot compete? there are no rivals. But the mind-made union of the conventional order is just one among many; mind breeds contention as one order vies with others for supremacy, all with a view toward the survivalist demands of I-am-ness. Unity is repeatedly reduced to union, and we must pledge allegiance to the state, party, or religion. Social demands are viewed as natural law and uniqueness is given over to uniformity. Not only do social demands derive from the drive to order, but idiosyncratic demands multiply as well. We suffer frustrations from even the most trivial of imperatives. Built into our structural output is its own negation. The more we count on the products of mind-made output, the more frustrated we become when their negation becomes apparent. One has only to look at the political sphere to see negation vehemently at play. Deviation from the expected is a thorn in the side of all mental constructs.
Even in the midst of our confusion we ask why. “Why did this have to happen? Is this all there is to life?” We look for reasons why we suffer. At first our honesty is clouded by our drives, and clear-headed answers do not come readily. Of course, all answers will be determined by the kinds of questions we ask. However, the truly alert individual begins even to question the questioning. The strategy of question and answer is eventually exhausted and one realizes that answers are not the answer. Maybe mind itself is the problem. But what is mind? What keeps it going? Can I answer these questions, or is there another way?
The yogis tell us to relinquish mind altogether. Restrict (nirodha) the operation of mind, and freedom is realized. But there are many subtle strategies that “mind” employs. Is it simply a matter of restricting the mind? Does not the rest of one’s life play a major role — the pleasures I seek, the things I dislike, the kind of person I am? Am I to just simply sit down and stop thinking? How do the yogis justify this action which is apparently no action?
All of these questions are dealt with through an understanding of the klesas. But understanding is only the beginning. The yogi must bring the mind to rest, surrendering to the order (rta) beyond mind. The yogi lives in a faithful acquiescence to the pure. In such a surrender the survivalist trends of I-am-ness are transcended. The power of consciousness (citi-sakti) animates an integrity beyond mind. This consciousness is the true Self (atman) which cannot be frozen and observed in an act of reflection. This Self is never known; it is the knower.
The Five Klesas
For our examination of the klesas we will use the sequence that Patanjali provides.7 Also it is important to make a few preliminary remarks prior to dealing with the klesas individually.
The word klesas derives from the verbal klis meaning distress, torment, trouble, pain, afflict. From klis comes klista meaning afflicted, tormented, distressed. “Klesa” therefore holds the meanings pain, affliction, distress, anguish.
The klesas are held to be error (viparyaya) and therefore erroneous ideas (mithya-jnana).8 Basically this means that what is held to be the case does not correspond to what “actually” is the case. Error is a mis-take. An erroneous or false idea is one not based on the “true” form or nature (rupa) of the perceived. As error, the klesas fall into one of the five vrttis or thought waves, the other four being valid cognition (pramana), conceptualization (vikalpa), sleep (nidra), and memory (smrtayah).9 Ultimately the task of yoga practice is to restrict (nirodha) the operation of all five vrttis. However, this cannot be accomplished without first eliminating error, i.e. the klesas.
Avidya
The first of the klesas to be discussed is avidya, literally non-knowledge. Avidya is held to be the field (ksetra) of the other four.10 For the sake of ease we will translate avidya as ignorance. Ignorance is the field for the others in the sense that the others presuppose the fundamental error of not knowing. This will be more clearly seen as we progress.
Avidya is defined as perceiving (khyati) the impermanent as the permanent, the impure as the pure, dissatisfaction as satisfaction, and the not-Self as the Self,11 as illustrated in the following:
the impermanent (anitya) taken as permanent (nitya)
the impure (asuci) taken as pure (suci)
dissatisfaction (duhkha) taken as satisfaction (sukha)
not-Self (anatma) taken as Self (atma)
The false perception of permanence in the impermanent is the mistaken idea that things endure. According to yoga, all things are subject to decay and change. It is our reliance on a falsely attributed permanence to things which is a cause of suffering. We demand that our bodies last, our car holds out, the warm weather remains. We find ourselves compulsively investing permanence in a world of change. This is due in large measure to our use of language. We know names and we attribute those names to what we think of as perceived form. However, the form changes but the name remains the same. A mistaken sense of permanence arises. Planets, stars, and galaxies will all dissolve; nothing remains.
On a more subtle level, the mistake of permanence is deeply rooted in our idea of time. We will be exploring this later. However, at this time we can say that our intrinsic awareness of the eternal (the permanent) becomes perverted into time. Time functions as continuity for subjects, things, and events.
When we impute purity to the impure we fix on the compounded, taking it to be the simple. All compounded things, whether they be corporeal or psychic, are mixed and impure. As such they are subject to change and decay. Our reliance on the compounded will give rise to dissatisfaction. On the level of the corporeal, the body is a compound and will eventually decay and cause pain. Yet we often find ourselves lusting after the body of another. This body is not seen for what it is. The impure is temporary and is not to be conceived of as the pure. On the psychic level consciousness of is always mixed with I and that, substance with attributes. This consciousness is flux itself and yet we attribute self-sameness to it and mistakenly “locate” Self there. Only the unmixed, the pure, is worthy of the name Self (atma). The mixed consciousness will provide us with knowledge of discrete selves, substances, and events. Pure consciousness (purusa) is wholistic, eternal, and undivided.
To the sensitive and discriminating, the cycle of pleasure, pain, and delusion is suffering (duhkha). We often thirst for the objects of sensation or even mental objects (such as facts). The subsiding of the senses, after their cravings have been quenched, is considered pleasure. Their failure to subside is considered dissatisfaction or pain. By continually granting the senses their fill of sense objects we do not free ourselves from craving. In addition, the “skill” of the senses also increases and cravings multiply.12 Even the temporary pleasure gained from quenching thirsts is intrinsically painful because it obstructs the path to liberation from craving. To the yogi satisfaction is not gained through the contact of our senses with sense objects. True satisfaction transcends the world of objects. The senses can then operate without craving, purified. The world is then not a divided realm but a unity which is ever new and unique. The realm of sense objects is the familiar, the knowable, the mundane. The yogi does not confuse duhkha with sukha.
It has been said that trying to see the Self (atma) is like trying to observe the ground beneath your feet. At best you can see where you stood or perhaps where you will stand, but never where you are standing. Similarly, we take images of past and future selves to be the Self. The Self is always “behind” the image. It is a living Self, beyond duality. Because this living Self forever remains unrecognized by the mind or consciousness which divides, we live the still life of the image-self. This self, ahamkara or I-maker,13 is lived and felt to be real and continuous. We locate this I in a body, or more precisely in a body conceptually generated, and then we further identify this body of flesh and bones as “me.” This self is the located self, the positional I, which is held to act, bleed, cry, and die. All the while the authentic Self is concealed; our bodies are not released into the dimension of oneness and openness. We are this bag of bones here opposed to things over there. We live the narrow life of contact and confrontation. The environment remains that which surrounds “me,” not that which I am.14
The conventional notion of self is dependent on the assumption of time as sequence (kramah). According to the yogis, real (vastu) time is an indivisible instant (ksana). This instant is an integration of past, present, and future. Sequence or continuity is the product of imagination, an idea (buddhi-nirmanah). Time as continuity is the abstract linking of one instant to the next and so on. If we were to apply collective concentration (samyama) to instants and continuity we would realize that we tend to confuse these. Such a realization brings about totalistic knowledge of time and things without sequence.15In other words, discrete objects, selves, and events, which depend on continuity for their being, are dissolved.
Our conceptual habits tend to unite instants into sequence, freezing life into enduring entities. Our sense of “I and mine” is a result of such a freezing. The yogi learns the way of death in that he or she ends sequence, thereby allowing the world of the discrete to die. In terminating continuity the yogi is liberated from repetition. Openness characterizes such a wakeful attitude. Openness is nonintervention; the past has died and nothing is carried over to interfere with life as it is lived. This vision that puts an end to sequence is called a redeemer (taraka).16
These statements concerning yogic vision are easily distorted into some confused esotericism. However, when put in practical terms, and this vision is eminently practical, this yogic “perception” is shown to be pure responsibility. Openness accomodates each and every situation without the burden of unnecessary thought-constructs. Knowledge acts as a whole, drawing upon the whole of our cultural resources in order to act in the most efficient manner. Doubt and insecurity stemming from fragmented and dualistic thinking are excluded. The frozen world is thawed into a fluid freedom, a freedom to act and live appropriately and responsibly without the encumbrance of self and all its anxieties. This vision is the knowledge born of discrimination (viveka-ja-jnanam),17 the yogi discriminates atma from anatma, purusa from the world born of cognition.
Asmita
The second of the klesas is asmita, literally translated, I-am-ness. Patanjali says that “I-am-ness is the apparent ‘one-self-ness’ of the power (sakti) of seeing (drg) and the power used to see (darsana)” (drg-darsana-saktyor-eka-atmata-iva-asmita).18 The purusa or pure consciousness is the power of consciousness (citi-sakti) spoken of above. This power is considered the animating force for all seeing (drg-sakti). The seeing power that is ascribed to purusa is the wholistic ordering of the world without thought. The “power used to see” is the mind-made conventional ordering, the realm of discrete persons, places, and things. When a confusion arises which identifies these two powers as one, the sense of self is born, I-am-ness. This is best illustrated in light of our discussion of time.
The purusa or pure consciousness is eternal. The empirical self, I, is felt to be continuous. Again, it is because one instant has been linked to another that sequence is born. In this context we speak of individual life as biography. “I was here yesterday, I am here today, and I will be here tomorrow.” In “sensing the sameness of eternity” thought appropriates this changelessness and projects continuity. We speak of feeling the same now as we did ten years ago. Well, it is not a matter of us, I, feeling the same but of our “feeling” sameness. Language, however, is ever ready to seize this sameness of eternity and construct continuity. “I really do feel the same as I did yesterday!” This is a matter of the “power used to see” concealing its animating basis of sameness, the “power of seeing.” Eternity is not discriminated (viveka) and the two powers appear as one (eka-atmata) .
The yogi’s life is one of surrender to the reality of eternity and therefore one of surrender of self. However, if eternity remains concealed and I-am-ness “continues,” the result is a life of seeding pleasure and avoiding pain. The I stands naked in the face of opposing forces, on the one hand those which seek to satisfy cravings and on the other those which produce dissatisfaction.
Raga
The third affliction is raga, variously translated as passion, love, attachment, color, tint, redness. It comes from ranj meaning color. “We will translate raga as attachment.
Life within the context of the conventional order pits an I here and a that there. In this relation what satisfies cravings is considered pleasure. Patanjali tells us that “Attachment (raga) is that which dwells (anusayi) on pleasure (sukha).”19 The word sukha is used here in the conventional sense as that which is pleasurable. (However, this does not exclude true satisfaction, as once one has realized it momentarily and it has been reduced to a mere memory, it can be longed for as a pleasure.) Pleasure is attachment with respect to memory. We once experienced a nice feeling or sensation. We reflect on our past and project the possibility of repeating this pleasure into the future. We seek to establish the conditions for the “same” pleasure to arise again. This is the dwelling on pleasure. The dwelling is the superimposition of continuity. Time is again a key element. Without the assumption of time, craving ceases. We apply the strategy of pleasure seeking within the context of time. Once more we are caught reinforcing the conventional order and concealing unity. The dwelling on pleasure keeps alive all of the conditions necessary for pleasure to arise. As long as there is the dwelling on pleasure, time is operative and insures the existence of the discrete, in effect concealing the pure.
Dvesa
“The fourth of the klesas is dvesa, aversion. “Dvesa is that which dwells on dissatisfaction (duhkha).”20Aversion gives rise to disgust, resentment, and anger. As is the case with raga, dvesa depends upon memory. We recall dissatisfying experiences and seek to avoid them and the conditions which give rise to them. This is dwelling on aversion. Dwelling is the condition of being time-bound. Our recollection of dissatisfaction presupposes that it is I who had, has, and will have experience. We try to avoid that which we think causes suffering and in the bargain we sustain our view of suffering. We can avoid only that which we look for. Aversion in effect actually sustains aversion. This is something like a self-fulfilling prophesy. By seeking to avoid certain situations we are sizing up our situations by the criteria of aversion. “Let me be on the look-out for x so it does not happen again.” Our dwelling on x seeks to locate it in experience. We generally “find” what we look for (intend). “See, I knew this would happen.” Therefore, dwelling on aversion, we dwell in aversion. Life becomes the opposition. We resent living and become angered because we are so helpless. The I remains the preeminent victim. The world is viewed as being populated with obstacles. Not only is the world a world of entities, but these entities have become enemies. We establish borders, walls, and boundaries; possibility becomes the frightening unknown. Yet, most of us want to keep on living. In fact, we cling to life.
Abhinivesa
The fifth klesa is abhinivesa. This word derives from /vis meaning “enter.” The prefix abhi means “to, unto, toward.” The prefix ni means “down, into.” So “abhinivesa” has the meaning of “settling down.” However, its most common and perhaps appropriate translation is the “will to live.” We will see why this translation is accurate.
Human beings take great care to go on living. In fact, some consider the will to live an instinct, something we are born with. The classical yogic view states that this craving does not arise except in one in whom the experience of death resides. Neither perception, inference, nor authoritative declarations can account for this desire to continue. Therefore, concludes the classical view, we may infer that “the pangs of death have already been experienced in previous births.”21 What the classical yoga “philosopher” means by this must be examined.
Patanjali informs us that the will to live is motivated by its own essence (svarasa-vahi). The difficulty in grasping this seems to lie in the difficulty we have in observing the operations of our sense of self-consciousness. We may start out by saying that “to be” is not different than the desire to continue to be. How so? As we have already noted, time is an essential ingredient in the composition of selves, things, and events. To name, that is, to have things, we must view life from the time perspective, i.e. sequence. In this view something is when it is be-ing through time. Without this continuity there are no things, no independent entities. In order for something to be it must endure. As we mentioned above, for the yogi, sequence is broken and eternity is realized. The yogi has the capacity to transcend the view of independent entities because he or she permits death to live. Death puts an end to sequence. If we “have” the notion of self it is understood that sequence is assumed; “I was, am, and will be.” It makes no sense to speak of I without the notion of time being implied.22 It therefore becomes obvious that we cannot “be” without the will to be in the future. The I is continuity, the I is not different than time itself. Self and time arise together.
The notion of biography which we casually put trust in assumes time to be linear. This assumption is the root of our will to live. Patanjali also tells us that this desire dominates even the wise (vidusa). However much knowledge we may accumulate (time) it does not free us from this craving. Only the yogi who has ended sequence (krama) can put an end to craving. And putting an end to it means putting an end to all things, thereby transcending the conventional world order. From the point of view of the yogi we might say that the notion of self is “illusory.” This means that it is a mind-made object (subject), an idea. There is no doubt that this illusion is also an experience.23 The yogi does not deny that. However, what the yogi does deny is that this experience is the only way of being alive.24 From the dawn of Indian thought to the present the wise have sought for immortality.25 The yogi realizes it by abandoning continuity. The classical philosopher was right when he said that this will to live (abhinivesa) does not arise except in one whom the experience of death resides. Our concern for survival points to the tenuous nature of our feeling of self. What is death to the I is immortality to the yogin. Our “clinging to life” itself conveys our tacit knowledge of eternity. Why cling if self were real and needed no support?
The essence of abhinivesa is continuity. Continuity seeks more of itself. In this sense it is self-motivated. To be is not different than the desire to continue to be. Be-ing itself presupposes continuity or sequence. Therefore, if I am, I can only be in time. The “pangs of death” become, to the yogi, the call of immortality.
The Four Stages (Bhumis) of the Klesas
Now that the five klesas have been discussed we can proceed to observe the way they operate. There are four stages (bhumis) of the klesas dormant (prasupta), weakened (tanu), intercepted (vicchinna), and sustained (udara).26
First, after learning of the klesas and their effects, we set out to weaken their hold. This is the tanu stage, or weakened stage. In order to weaken the klesas we practice kriya-yoga or action-yoga.27 Kriya-yoga is also employed to cultivate samadhi (concentration), but that does not directly concern us here. Kriya-yoga consists of three elements: austerity (tapas), study (svadhyaya), and dedication to the lord (Isvara-pranidhana).28
Austerity (tapas) is action taken to hinder the manifestation of the klesas. We could also say that tapas (lit.”heat”) acts in such a way that the conventional world order is drained of compulsive tendencies. Tapas may take the forms of yoga postures (asanas), fasting, keeping silent, prolonged wakefulness, etc. These austerities are done with a view toward weakening the habitual patterns of thought, word, and deed which reinforce our error concerning the “authentic” nature of existence. Austerities are never undertaken by the yogi with. a view toward furthering self-interest. This would defeat their purpose.
Study (svadhyaya) is delving into texts, scriptures, and books concerning liberation. Study is concerned with the clarification of thought processes. The repetition of erroneous thinking regarding yoga, meditation, etc. only leads to confusion. Therefore the yogi must read books which are written by professionals and dedicated people so as to not cloud the mind. Also, svadhyaya may involve the pranava-japam, the repetition of OM.29 This mantra is held to represent the unity of life as that life is lived selflessly. The repetition of OM and the reflection on its meaning involves one in the clarification process. This also weakens the hold of conventional reality.
Finally, kriya-yoga entails dedication to isvara, often translated as “lord.” Isvara may be understood as that consciousness which incites the manifest world into being. Isvara is a special consciousness (purusa-visesa) which is all knowing and has never been concealed by ignorance. Isvara is held to have brought about the conventional world through pure illumination (prakrsta-sattva). This consciousness is untouched by desire (rajas) and delusion (tamas) and therefore its involvement in the world is free from bondage. The pranavah (sacred syllable) OM expresses isvara. Because isvara is ever pure this “lord” is considered the guru of the earliest teachers. In fact, the sattva or illumination of isvara is held to have authored the scriptures (sruti).
The integrity or wholeness of eternity is not ordered by mind. The order of the mind is the ordering of discrete subjects, objects, and events. This is the world or the order of conventional experience. In this realm humans consider themselves as the doers, the orderers.30 The mind is viewed as that which “pieces” it all together. In dedication to isvara the yogi renounces such an attitude. The yogi begins to realize that dependence on the mind-made realm pits subjectivity against objectivity and leads to dissatisfaction. The language which arises to lay claim to an action, “I did that,” is sacrificed. Also, the object(s) of the action, the fruits of the action, are renounced. In seeking the results of our actions we unwittingly reinforce our attachment to the conventional and conceal the eternal. Time plays a necessary role in the ideology of the pay-back. The yogi learns to surrender to a life without self-effort. Dedication yes, but agency no. Dedicating both agency and its fruits to the lord is the weakening of the tendency to manifest and reinforce avidya.
These three elements of kriya-yoga (tapas, svadhyaya, and isvara-pranidhdna) combine to oppose the klesas and this opens the yogi to samadhi. This is the tanu stage.
The second of the stages is the intercepted (vicchinna, lit. “cut off”) stage. When one of the klesas has been weakened this does not preclude the rising of antoher, or the rising of a different form of the same. One klesa is said to intercept another. The rising klesa cuts off the weakened klesa. It is clear that all the k lesas must be eliminated or else a weakened one stands a chance of being cut off or interrupted by a stronger one. When attachment is active, aversion is overpowered. Or, when attachment to one object arises it cuts off attachment to others.
The next of the stages is the sustained (udara). This is described as thought which is “fixed” upon an object. We might call it an obsession.
Lastly, the dormant (prasupta, lit. “asleep”) stage. This condition is described as one of potency. In the dormant stage the klesas tend toward impotency. There is still the potential for the klesas to become active again but dormancy implies here their decline in that kind of potential. They are said to be on their way to becoming “burned seed” which can no longer germinate. Once they have arrived at this latter condition they can be said to have reached a fifth stage, i.e. totally impotent.31 But until impotency is reached the yogi must be cautious and respect their potential for becoming active. Only the highest insight (prasamkhyana), which is able to distinguish the unity from the multiplicity, is able to sterilize the seeds.
From the more fundamental point of view, all of the klesas are manifestations of avidya. Avidya is their field (ksetra). Through the cultivation of opposition (pratipaksa-bhavana) by kriya-yoga, etc., these stages cease operation. Avidya can be seen as “manifesting” itself in these diverse klesas and only when it does so can we speak of stages (bhumis) of the klesas. From a yogic point of view all discrete objects are given form by avidya: all error is avidya. Therefore, the multiplicity of the manifest creation as well as the error inherent in it fades when avidya does.32
The Retrieval of Creation
We have noted that the world of multiplicity, the conventional mind-made order, becomes manifest through the klesas. After kriya-yoga has done its work and reduced the klesas to mere potential or subtlety (suksma) the abandonment of this potency must be effected. If the mind-made order of discrete subjects, objects, and events is the correlate of avidya, then it is only fitting that this order be returned to a more “original” condition. This return to the origin or retrieval of creation is called pratipvasava.33 This return is synonymous with the elimination of the klesas. Creation implies time as sequence. The yogi ends time thereby ending creation, returning the world to its original condition. This origin is eternity, a non-dualistic condition. The elements, i.e. space, air, fire, water, and earth, the sensorial realms, the mind, and the I are returned to oneness. This is the advaita, the “not-two.” Time stands still, immortality is realized, and the yogi is set free from the klesas.
The “knowledge” we have of the “external world” is not other than time (krama) to the discerning vision of the yogi. World and time cannot ultimately be segregated. No small amount of effort has been spent on determining the duration of the universe in Indian civilization. In fact the measurements of the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains have all been rather carefully thought out and presented in most elaborate forms.34
For the yogi, creation, the universe, is the manifestation of the tatttvas (intelligence, I, mind, sensorial realms, elements, etc.) mentioned above. Once creation is seen as the mind-made order and the yogi has succeeded in halting the flow of time, the duration of the cosmos presents no problems. The units of measurement used in calculating the life of the universe, kalpas and yugas, are not different than the operation of the sequence that the yogi has investigated in his or her own collective concentration (samyama).35 How long does the universe last? As long as avidya does! The yogi realizes that there is no difference between kalpas and yugas and his or her own mental operations (citta-vrttis). The yogi’s performance of pratiprasava or “retrieval of creation” determines the life of the universe. (Of course this does not exclude the “continuation” of the universe for others, as ignorance is an individual’s responsibility.)
From Kriya-Yoga to Meditation (Dhyana)
After the mental operations (citta-vrttayah) which manifest the klesas in the most obvious ways have been reduced, there is a need for a more subtle form of treatment. Meditation (dhyana) provides the appropriate cure.36 In the quiet of meditation those turns of consciousness (of) which reinforce the klesas are abandoned. The yogi gracefully allows death into the picture in order to dissolve, or rather allow to be dissolved, the subtle manifestations of ignorance. Normal unattentive consciousness leaves the body open to the play of avidya and therefore the grip of the klesas remains strong. Meditation opens the body beyond the possibility of inferior incarnations. What arises as consciousness grounded in the klesas is simply allowed to die without reinforcement. The body does not generate a klesa-order. Actions are not determined by the klesas in meditation. Ignorance can gain strength and continue to reproduce only if it is reinforced by incarnating it in thought, word, and deed. Meditation is the wakeful abandonment (heya) of reinforcing drives.
Through the practice of yoga the yogi learns to understand all the compulsive drives of human existence. Our dissatisfaction is due to our inability to clarify and realize the roots of our drives. In our confusion we may take life to be meaningless, we may feel a sense of alienation, we may even long for a time “when things were easier,” a simpler time. In and through meditation we realize that the meaninglessness of existence is a distortion of the unity of existence. When self is injected into the timeless, the world appears meaningless or empty. In truth this appearance is a call to realize unity. However, unity cannot be realized by a self, an observer. Unity is, in fact, the cancellation of the meanings that string together the discrete entities of the conventional world order. But a distorted contact with this cancellation will give rise to a feeling of desolation, net enlightenment. We cannot have our cake and eat it, too. The self must die in order that the bodily bliss of this unity can live.
Alienation, too, is an epiphany of transcendence. The timeless makes its presence felt in our everyday lives in diverse ways. The yogis may feel it as transcendence, the self-centered condemn it as alienation. Again the problem is an injection of self into what is selfless. A surrender to this transcendence involves self-sacrifice.
Nostalgic longing is also a pathology. It indicates a perverted desire for the return. Instead of realizing the return as the collapse of the conventional, the mind dwells in nostalgia. Meditation recognizes nostalgia as a perverted call to return to the origin (pratiprasava). It therefore works to undermine the basis of perversion, the self.
In the way that language, thought, appropriates eternity and gives rise to continuity, the self appropriates genuine calls to immortality and gives rise to malady. The yogi knows all dissatisfaction (duhkha) to be symptomatic of a fall from immortality. The ordinary mind seeks a cure by masking the symptoms, dvesa and raga. The only lasting cure is the abandonment of the disease; the yogi does not settle for feeling good while remaining ill.37 Meditation is aimed at cure, not concealment.
Concluding Note on the Known World
Our examination of the klesas has taken us into the twofold life of being human. On the one hand we live as discrete selves in a conventional mind-made order of things and events. On the other, we have access to the eternal which is beyond time and therefore beyond the discrete. The known world is the world of distinctness. Eternity by contrast is without parts. We saw that time as sequence (krama) provides us with the atomic, the separate. Knowledge and time go hand in hand. Space is the distance that knowledge and time use to separate. The conventional world, that is, conventional language, is the ordering of time, space, and knowledge. The world is a mind-made diagram. According to yoga, this world is possible only if avidya is operative. If we mistake the impermanent for the permanent, the impure for the pure, dissatisfaction for satisfaction, not-self for Self, the known world arises. Once this world has arisen, dissatisfaction is the inevitable consequence. We find ourselves in a “world out there” desperately clutching the small chunk of life we believe we have. It may not usually appear to us in so dramatic a manner. We have grown quite used to our daily struggle for egocentric survival. The yogi, however, is said to become extremely sensitive to life. He or she is said to be like an eye.38 A small thread of wool placed on the skin causes no discomfort. But place it on the eyeball.
We have come to mistake numbness for tolerance.
Our key to an understanding of the klesas has been time. It is important that one realize the significance of this teaching. By halting sequence the yogi brings the known world to a close. No longer is there the plurality of moments (ksana) that acted as the pearls on the necklace of time. The string is cut. Plurality ceases. This vision is the messiah long sought after by those of us “in the world.” This vision delivers us from the world. Heaven is earth. A new order, a divine order if you like, is realized. We are no longer fixed to the view that we act, we suffer, we long. We do “the will of the father,” not our own.39 For our will pits us, I, against the world. The divine order transcends the duality of subject and object.
We can readily understand from the foregoing why religious language has pitted spirituality against materiality, the sacred against the profane, god against the devil, good against evil. Ultimately, these dualities are only apparent dualities. If the spiritual, the sacred, the good, and god are realized duality ceases. Duality becomes apparent only from the point of view of the conventional. Yet the religious views most predominant today are based on a maintenance of these dualities, a most unfortunate situation.
The klesas provide us with a model for a sophisticated pathology. Instead of diagnoses being made on the basis of dualism, the yogic point of view would see dualism itself as disease. The only cure for the dissatisfied is a return to wholeness, i.e. health. However, even health has come to mean a healthy “body” in a world of objects, even if objects and body are seen as somehow interrelated. Wholeness is the realization that “if your eye is single your body is full of light,”40 an allusion to the body as organized by the eye of unity, as identity with world. The traditional view of health regards prolonged life as one of its goals. However, if that goal is one of prolonging “self in world” the goal is doomed to remain an exercise in the extension of dissatisfaction.
Dualism remains an important tool for describing and explaining. But unless we learn to view dualism as only a tool we will remain forever in its circumference. When the lessons of unity are forgotten, as they have been in the West for centuries, one pair of the dualism is valued positive and the other negative and people take sides, often fighting to the death. Dualism functions to point beyond itself. One member, the negative, indicates the problem (dualism itself), the other points to transcendence (the not-two). In our ignorance, our forgetfulness, we take both members as two separate and opposed views; right and wrong are born. From the side of unity right and wrong are both wrong. (Of course, ultimately, this last statement is only a tool.)
With this in mind we can return to the language of the conventional from a fresh point of view. ‘Heaven’ and ‘earth,’ ‘health’ and ‘sickness,’ ‘god’ and ‘satan’ are infused with new meanings, wherein the first member indicates a transcendence of both.
Our lessons in the klesas can provide us with important clues as to the nature of our human predicament. We can view all of our dissatisfaction as being grounded in ignorance (avidya). One significant conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that we are totally responsible for the world we live in. Avidya has no beginning (anadi) only an end, so say the yogis. Given what we have understood concerning time it is possible for us to agree with the yogis of old. We find ourselves already in the “world.” Time is born with the conventional order.
We are not to blame for our ignorance but we are responsible for it.
Notes
1. The Yoga-sutras represent the core text of the Yoga Darsana, the classical yoga view. They are said to have been composed by Patanjali about 300-500 A.D. The most complete book on the subject is The Yoga-System of Patanjali, James Haughton Woods, trans. (India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977 reprint). It includes translations of the Yoga-sutras, the Yoga-bhrasya by Vyasa (650-850 A.D.), and the Tattva-vaisaradi by Vacaspatimisra (ca. 850 A.D.).
2. Yoga-sutra I, 3 (hereafter cited as Y.S.).
3. The construction “mind-made” is used in the most general sense to mean all that is not the sva-rupa (own-form) of the purusa. Arguments as to whether this constitutes idealism as opposed to an implicit realism in yoga are peripheral to the central theme of this paper. We will leave such debates to the scholars who enjoy them. For us, we see no soteriological harm in using any of the terms that the Hindus and Buddhists alike employ to develop the distinction between knowledge and ignorance.
4. The term “kaivalyam” (from kevala) is usually translated “isolation” in Yoga-Samkhya literature. However, in Vedanta, the term is used in the sense of “absolute unity.”
5. The task of the citta is twofold: first, to provide experience for the purusa, and secondly, to provide liberation. See Y.S. II, 18, 21, and IV, 32.
6. Y.S. I, 48. It is stated that prajna (wisdom) is supportive of the rta, a word which dates from Vedic times and is generally held to mean “cosmic order” or “norm.”
7.Y.S. II, 3.
8.Y.S. I, 8 and II, 3.
9. Y.S. I, 6.
10. Y.S. II, 4.
11. Y.S. II, 5.
12. Y.S. II, 15 and Bhasya.
13. The term ahamkara (lit. “I-maker”) is a functional term within the practice (abhyasa) of the Samkhya Karikas. In isolating the I-making function the student of Samkhya is learning detachment from the compulsive tendency to inject self-nature into experience.
14. As in the upanisadic dictum “Tat-tvam-asi, ” thou art that, no dualism is present to distinguish self from surroundings. The atma, or Self, is held to be identical with Brahman, the oneness that is the highest reality. Chandogya upaniaad, VI, 8.
15. Y.S. III, 15, 16, 52, and IV, 32, 33.
16. Y.S. III, 54.
17. Y.S. III, 52, 54.
18. Y.S. II, 6.
19. Y.S. II, 7.
20. Y.S. II, 8.
21. See Y.S. II, 9 and Bhasya.
22. This is true of even the most simple statements: “I like apples” implies duration of self, likes, and apples. All language in the ordinary sense is time bound.
23. In yoga, experience is a product of the modifications (parinama) of the three gunas, sattva, ragas, and tamas and as such it is considered a reality. One must, however, keep in mind that the real is what is experienced, not that which exists independently of experience. For the Vedantic view see Brahmasutra-bhasya, II, 2, 28 of Samkara, where he states:
There could be no non-existence (of external entities) because external entities are actually perceived…
An external entity is invariably perceived in every cognition such as pillar, wall, a pot or a piece of cloth. It can never be that what is actually perceived is non-existent.
Also see the Bhagavad Gita, II, 16.
24. The notion of self may be said to be illusory only from the viewpoint of the sva-rupa of the purusa. Self as I-am-ness is excluded from such a view. But, conventionally speaking, the experience of I-am-ness is nonetheless an experience.
25. See Rg Veda, VII, 59, 12 and Brhadaranyaka upanisad, I, 3, 28.
26. See Y.S. II, 4 and Bhasya.
27. Y.S. II, 3.
28. Y.S. IX, 1.
29. Y.S. I, 27, 28 and Bhasya to II,1.
30. Bhagavad Gita III, 25-31. On Isvara see Y.S. I, 24-28 and Svetasvatara upanisad IV, 10.
31. See Bhasya to II,4.
32. Yoga holds that the manifest world comes into being when purusa becomes associated (samyoga) with prakrti. This samyoga puts the three gunas in motion acting upon one another to manifest self, “objects, senses, organs of action, and elements. The cause of this samyoga is avidya, 7.5. II, 24. Epistemology and ontology are here inseparable.
33. Y.S. II, 10.
34. For the most sophisticated explanation of Hindu cosmology see: Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance (New York: Nicolas Hayes Ltd., 1976).
35. Y.S. III, 52 and Bhasya.
36. Y.S. II, 11.
37. Y.S. II, 16.
38. See Bhasya on sutra II, 15.
39. Matthew 7:21.
40. Matthew 6:22.