More on Kleshas

Reading from Wednesday, February 19, 2014 yoga class

Before all the snow hit, I started talking about the kleshas, the five universal obstacles.  I am going to start anew... the following is from a newsletter from Jennifer Reis, the teacher I took my yoga nidra training. There are so many ways to look at the kleshas, and I like her views on it.

"Has this ever happened to you: "I am in the wrong place, with the wrong person--it would be so much better to be over there, and with that other person.  Wherever I am is not the place I ought to be...I am missing out..."  This was the story of my life!

From the mundane to the profound, something out there was always better, and I was sure I was missing the boat.  The outfit I was wearing required a different belt or shirt or shoe, something that I did not have; every place I lived, there was somewhere else far better and more suited to me; every love was the wrong one, because there was someone else out there who would be better in some way.

That sinking feeling and panic inside, heart a-flutter in disappointment, knowing that you're missing out on life! And missing out WAS happening... not because I was in the wrong place at that moment, but because I was not able to open to receive the moment I was in.  This limiting belief caused me so much discontent and suffering that I just wanted it to stop.  I wanted to feel differently!  I wanted to feel that I belonged fully to the moment I was in, that I was doing exactly what I ought to be doing."

She goes on to say that Patanjali was able to narrow human suffering down to only five causes!

"How incredible, I thought!  It seems like I might have a chance to create less suffering in my life since there are only five causes.  I began to notice how I resorted to this 'desire/aversion' dichotomy all day long, with seemingly everything!  Attempting to control things that were beyond my powers of intervention.  I lacked an underlying trust that the universe would give me exactly what was needed in every moment.  I felt I was in control, that I should be try to make everything the way I wanted it when in reality MY ROLE IN THE UNFOLDING OF THE UNIVERSE IS MORE MINOR."

More to come in the next few weeks on the kleshas!!