bration of the joy of life itself. Dvesa (aversion) is an emotional repul
sion and flight from pain, manifesting as prejudice and hatred and
making it impossible for us to learn from life's hardships and our own
mistakes. Abhinivesa (fear of death) is an instinctive clinging to life,
which, though appropriate at a biological level, causes perverted atti
tudes when transferred to aspects of life where it does not apply. Ab
hinivesa can easily be experienced if you over-prolong the retention at
the end of exhalation. Panic sets in. It is ignorance, or the fundamental
misapprehension of Reality, that underpins and feeds all the other af
flictions. If you want to see the power these afflictions have over our
lives and human history in general, just watch the evening news on
television and identify these five destructive influences at work. That
is easy. Then apply them to yourself.
The Goal Can Be Reached
Meditation is the gateway to ending the Five Afflictions. Meditation is
bringing the complex mind to a state of simplicity and innocence but
without ignorance. Meditation comes when ego is vanquished. As the
seventh petal of yoga, it can be reached by progressing through all
other stages of yoga practice. But the eighth petal, samadhi, comes as
the fruit of meditation. It arrives by the Grace of God and cannot be
forced. Samadhi is the state in which the aspirant becomes one with the
object of meditation, the Supreme Soul pervading the universe, where
there is a feeling of unutterable joy and peace.
In the past chapter, we explored the point at which the totality of
being was experienced, from core to periphery, an expansive, creative
movement that revealed the individual Self (jivatman). The focus of this
chapter, the blissful sheath (anandamaya kosa), is the surrender, and
fusion, of the individual Self in the Ocean of Being. It is not merely the
transcendence of ego but the dissolution of self as we know it, a hiatus
in the ongoing experience of self. It brings us to the original illusion
II K S I Y I' N 1; 1\ II