Essence of Yoga


“What is this life if, full of care, there is no time to stand and stare?” I sit in a pause between activities and the mind skips around considering what to do next. It does not rest long with the possibility of doing nothing – as in ‘just sitting’ ie doing being, ie meditating. My ordinary mind is a distraction junkie. Conceptaholic. Linguistaholic. I have become conditioned as a talking head from the chattering classes. Motor mouth from a machine gun mind. Don’t stop the world as I have absolutely no intention of getting off! {AHA – the kleshas!]



In his Yoga Sutras Patanjali lists five plagues (kleshas) which are impediments on the way. They are ignorance, egoism, love, hate, and thirst for life. Ignorance (avidya) is the root of all the others.



The Visuddhi-magga lists ten kleshas – desire or craving, (trishna) hate, delusion, pride, false views (drishti), doubt (vichikitsa), rigidity, excitability, shamelessness, lack of conscience. The false views include belief in an ego, eternalism, nihilism, denial of the law of karma, persistence in these false views, and the belief that false views can lead to liberation. The false views can be eliminated merely by insight; the other passions that are based on desire, hate and similar emotional factors and are not, like the false views, intellectual in nature take longer and are more difficult to eliminate. One can get rid of them through regular meditation practice.