Om Yoga Magazine — February 2018

om spirit

S

o many of us are caught in strong habitual behaviour: the

perpetual rushing, the constant checking of the phone, the

repetitive arguments with a loved one. How can yoga teach

us to train the wild habitual horses to walk at the pace we

want?

Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras might be around 1,700 years old but the

advice to break the wheel of suffering is still relevant. In Sutra 2:2

Pantanjali talks about a path to happiness that is stopped by ‘the

five klesas’ (or poisons). These are mental tendencies that are

deeply woven into the mind. They affect us both mentally and

emotionally and keep us from experiencing things as they are,

only as how we see them...thus, keeping us in a continuous cycle

of repetitive suffering.

Five hindrances (klesas):

1) Avidya, ignorance, not seeing things as they really are

2) Raga, desire

3) Dvesa, aversion

4) Asmita, misidentification, the ‘I maker’

4) Abhinivesa, fear of death

Seeing the klesas manifest in our everyday life

As humans we filter all our information through our sense organs.

This information starts as sensations. From these, a feeling arises

that is usually deemed ‘positive’, ‘negative’ or ‘neutral’. And then the

problems start when the ‘I maker’ makes an entire story about ‘me’...

just from a few initial sensations.

Let’s look at this from a yoga asana point of view. Let’s say I’m in

triangle pose. A sensation of discomfort comes up in my hamstrings.

I label it ‘negative’ and from here my ‘I maker’ (asmita) comes in and

creates stories: “I don’t like this posture; it isn’t good for me. This

teacher doesn’t know what they’re doing. I knew I shouldn’t have

come to this class. I’m not ready for yoga...and so on!”

Originally, there was just a sensation, then came a feeling and

from the feeling a whole story about ‘me’ came up. Usually this story

is hypnotising and doesn’t want to go away. (Think of being in an

argument and how it becomes almost life or death sometimes to hold

onto ‘my’ opinion). And so we have abhinivesa. From this attachment

to the story we aren’t seeing things (avidya) as they are — since we

are overlapping an experience with stories of ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘mine’.

The both scary and empowering thing is we are creating this

suffering ourselves! Originally there was just a sensation, then a

feeling, and from that feeling the I maker came in and went wild.

The five klesas: how to break free from our habitual patterns using yogic wisdom.

By Luke Bache

BREAKING

THE MOULD

There are endless examples but here is one more in

another everyday situation:

I am at home, I have cooked my partner a romantic anniversary

dinner. She calls, she has to stay late at work and had forgotten our

anniversary. This leads to a disagreement, in which uncomfortable,

hot, rising sensations are present and a negative feeling (anger)

is present in the body: I don’t like it, I want to avoid it (dvesa). My

mind is now creating many stories: ‘How could she do this to me?’

Or ‘I deserve better’. These stories are gaining more and more

momentum (abhinivesa) and I am starting to not see things as they

are, as I start to go into a personality layer that has developed over

years of avoiding uncomfortable sensations. (Here, the truth might

be my girlfriend just had a terrible day in which her closest colleague

lost her job, and she has double the workload for a big presentation

in a few days.)

To avoid the feelings:

a) I go to the internet and scroll through Facebook for two

hours, maybe even message an ex-girlfriend to ‘feel’ better.

b) I eat all the dinner and drink a bottle of wine and then a

tub of delicious chocolate ice cream.

c) I go online and buy a new wardrobe.

d) You fill in the gap for your coping mechanism?

Most of us in the West are not educated to sit with feelings. If a

feeling of discomfort comes up we usually try to avoid it. I believe

this is why many people are addicted to their phones. Whenever

boredom comes up, instead of feeling it as a feeling and potentially

investigating it, most people pick up their phones and scroll

aimlessly through social media. Look at any escalator in any city

“There is a Zen story about a man riding

a horse that is galloping very quickly.

Another man, standing alongside the

road, yells at him, “Where are you

going?” and the man on the horse yells

back, “I don’t know. Ask the horse.” I

think that is our situation. We are riding

many horses that we cannot control.”

Thich Nhat Hanh