- Avidya ̄: Ignorance of the true nature of reality and Self-nature
- Asmita ̄: Egoism or sense of ‘I am’
- R ̄aga: Attraction accompanying the desirable
- DveÓsa: Repulsion that accompanies the undesirable
- Abhinive ́sa: Clinging to life and aversion to death [YS 2.3]
The first kle ́sa, avidya ̄, or ignorance, is the source (literally the ‘field,’
kÓsetra) of the others [YS 2.4]. Avidya ̄ is the judging of the impure as pure,
the non-Self to be the Self and so on [YS 2.5]. Halbfass calls avidya ̄ a ‘cog-
nitive disease.’ Avidya ̄ he says, is “a radical misunderstanding of the world
and one’s true nature. It is essentially self-deception, self-alienation, ap-
parent loss of one’s own identity.”^27 Avidya ̄ is the root of human bondage
and suffering, and because the overcoming of ignorance is the crux of lib-
eration in Yoga, the overcoming of the ignorance-based kle ́sasor afflic-
tions is foundational in yogic soteriology. Central to Yogic religious ther-
apeutics is the eradication of ignorance and its derivatives, conceived as
afflictions.
The second kle ́sais asmita ̄, ‘I-am-ness’ [asmi, ‘I am’]. This kle ́sais at
the root of thinking that one’s Self consists in one’s faculties of knowing
[YS 2.6]. By analogy, the moon sheds light that is not its own, for it reflects
the light of the sun. Asmit ̄a is the affliction concerning self-identity; it is
the mistake of thinking oneself to be the sum of one’s mental faculties and
their objects. One of the determinants of health is self-identity, and from
the standpoint of religious therapeutics, asmita ̄, or impaired self-identity,
is a fundamental form of spiritual ill-health. Realization of self-identity is
equivalent to liberation in Yoga; it means healing the debilitation and suf-
fering that result from non-establishment in one’s essential nature.
In kaivalya, asmit ̄ais replaced by knowledge of Self as puruÓsa. The
guÓnascease to transform and cease to produce modifications that agitate
the mind and interfere with Self-knowledge. In kaivalya, the purity of the
sattvaand the puruÓsaare equal [YS 3.56]. Sattva, the guÓnawhose nature
is purity and awareness, designates the human’s thirteen-part instrument
of cognition called citta. Citta(√cit, ‘to perceive,’ ‘to know’) is composed
of buddhi, manas, and ahamkara Ó or ego, along with the five sensory fa-
culties (vision, taste, smell, hearing, and touch), and the five organs of ac-
tion (voice, hands, feet, excretory organs, and sex organs). The Yoga-
bh ̄aÓsyaexplains the equilibration of sattvawith puruÓsa:
When the essence of the intelligence (buddhi), with the dirt of activity
(rajas) and dullness and inertia (tamas) removed, has the notion of theclassical yoga as a religious therapeutic 101