cal, emotional or mental. We may be addicted to a particular kind of food because we
find it pleasant. We may be attached to a person because we derive from him some
kind of pleasure, physical or emotional. We may be devoted to a particular pursuit be-
cause it gives us intellectual satisfaction.
- That repulsion which accompanies pain is Dvesa.
Dvesa is the natural repulsion felt towards any person or object which is a
source of pain or unhappiness to us. The essential nature of the Self is blissful' and
therefore anything which brings pain or unhappiness in the outer world makes the
outer vehicles recoil from that thing. What has been said about Raga is applicable to
Dvesa in an opposite sense because Dvesa is only Raga in the negative, the two to-
gether forming a pair of opposites.
As these two Klesas form the most prominent part of the fivefold tree which
provides the innumerable fruits of human misery and suffering it is worthwhile taking
note of a few facts concerning them.
(1) The attractions and repulsions which bind us to innumerable persons and
things, in the manner indicated above, condition our life to an unbelievable extent.
Unconsciously or consciously we think, feel and act according to hundreds of these
biases produced by these invisible bonds and there is hardly any freedom left for the
individual to act, feel and think freely. The conditioning of the mind which takes place
when we are under the domination of any overpowering attraction or repulsion is rec-
ognized, but few people have any idea of the distortion produced in our life by the less
prominent attractions and repulsions or the extent to which our life is conditioned by
them.
(2) These attractions and repulsions bind us down to the lower levels of con-
sciousness because it is only in these levels that they can have free play. It is a funda-
mental law of life that we find ourselves sooner or later where our conscious or uncon-
scious desires can be satisfied. Since these attractions and repulsions are really the