About the Five Kleshas (Part II)

Knowing the Knowing the Kleshas means tackling them

- Kum. Hella Naura

What are the Five Kleshas that make it difficult for each one, and with practically each one making it difficult for someone else, too? It has to be noted that although being just five, they can appear in so many combinations that they are hard to be looked through. The first of the five Kleshas is said to be the cause, the "breeding ground" of the following four and thus also of all the ensuing pains and problems of individuals. And these, if added up can affect a whole community, maybe a whole nation. It is Avidya, ignorance. However, this does not mean, in any way, lack of formal learning. What is at the base of all problems is a most common nescience with regard to one's own pure inner being, call it Self, Soul or Atman as against one's impermanent surface personality. Because of the importance of this point, some quotations will now follow referring to Sutras 11/4-9:

Commentary: "These Kleshas are dormant in a Yogi who has reached the higher stages of Samadhi. They are under control in the earnest student. They ebb and flow in the consciousness of the ordinary man. Kleshas are either active or inactive; very subtle in the sub-conscious or arising at a given moment and causing damage. When yoga is practiced with a deep spiritual commitment the aspirant comes to deeper stages of discriminative knowledge. This helps him to overcome the afflictions (Kleshas)."

The Sutra proper runs: "Believing the non eternal, the impure, the painful and the non-self to be eternal, pure, pleasurable and the Self is nescience."(See note for sources) The wording in two other publications is: "Avidya is taking the non-eternal, impure, evil and non-Atman to be eternal, pure, good and Atman respectively," and: "Avidya consists in regarding a transient object as everlasting, an impure object as pure, misery as happiness and the not-self as self."