Are you teaching about kleshas, the source of pain according to yoga philosophy? Here's some inspiration to do so.
Why practice yoga? Yoga systematically addresses the five afflictions.
Kleshas: foundation of the Yoga Sutras and the answer to the question, “Why should we practice yoga?”
The philosophy of kleshas is really the foundation of the system of yoga outlined by Patanjali. It is necessary to understand this philosophy thoroughly because it provides a satisfactory answer to the initial and pertinent question, “Why should we practice yoga?”
Contents
Background: Knowledge Standards for Teachers
Kleshas Vocabulary
Kleshas Introduction
What to Do About Them?
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Background: Knowledge Standards for Teachers
In 2017, I began crafting a flexible knowledge curriculum for yoga teacher trainers. I did this because the organization that was said to uphold teaching standards hadn’t even defined standards, much less supported teachers and trainers in meeting them, or verifying compliance. While claiming to be the standard bearer for teacher credentialing, the organization just took money and enforced bureaucracy
Because of the resulting illusion that yoga teaching had a representative and regulatory body, far more harm occurred than if it hadn’t made such claims or funneled so much money and time into a bureaucratic distraction. I saw through the illusion and had been ignoring this distraction my entire teaching and teaching support career. But over time, trainers told me about the challenges they faced due to the failures of this organization, and asked me for help.
Long before I set my sights on the momentous task of creating a training curriculum and knowledge standards, I’d been working with vast amounts of yoga material. On a daily basis, I’d find myself amazed by all the fascinating and meaningful subjects related to the process of teaching yoga as a tool for Self-realization. I often wondered how practitioners who hadn’t been exposed to this or that body of knowledge could still be referred to as yoga teachers who had met (nonexistent) standards. I made it my mission to make empowering, meaningful, and practical knowledge more accessible to anyone who might seek it.
I set no limits on the scope of knowledge that we make accessible through our site, but the challenge was to choose a scope for an entry-level training curriculum and to define minimum knowledge standards. I was faced with the fact that anyone who had been trained in Western schools in the previous couple of decades had been indoctrinated into the “200 hour” time constraint, which is based on exactly nothing — it’s an entirely random number without evidence or relationship to standards or quality.
Since I knew trainers would often need to structure their trainings according to the widely accepted model, I aligned the standards and curriculum structurally, but I did not consider the time limitation. A trainer can take 20 hours, 200 hours, or 2,000 hours to share and mentor a trainee. But separate from that mentorship is a knowledgebase that I believe every teacher should have access to. I can’t know how much time it will take someone to learn that knowledge: some may already know large swaths of it and others may take many years to fully integrate it. I chose to include any knowledge that can reasonably be deemed foundational to the teaching of yoga.
One of many subjects that wasn’t often emphasized in entry level trainings but that I thought would be beneficial is kleshas.
Kleshas Vocabulary
Some of these Sanskrit words are spelled differently by different authors. We’ve settled on the following spellings while noting other ways you may come across them.
Kleshas
Obstacles
Veils
Afflictions
Troubles
Avidya
Ignorance
Spiritual Ignorance
Misapprehension
Lack of Insight
Asmita
Separateness
Feeling of Individuality
Egoism
I-Feeling
Identification with the Mutable
Raga
Attachment
Passion
Dvesha (Dvesa, Dwesha)
Aversion
Disgust
Hatred
Abhinivesha (Abhinivesah, Abhinivesa)
Fear of Death
Will to Live
Clinging to Bodily Life
Insecurity
Deep-Seated Anxiety
Kleshas Introduction
The philosophy of kleshas lays the foundation for The Yoga Sutras, answering the “initial and pertinent” question, “Why should we practice yoga?” Kleshas describe the source of pain.
As we become increasingly vested in the material world and identify with things outside ourselves, the veils (kleshas) thicken over our innate wisdom.
Tendencies We All Have That May Be Deeply Ingrained
The kleshas are outlined in the Yoga Sutras (II.3), where they are described as obstacles to our spiritual growth, or more to the point, afflictions. They are tendencies we all have that may be so ingrained that we aren’t even aware of them. They can be present to different degrees: truly advanced yogis are said to have only remnants of kleshas, while the rest of us seem to bounce from one to the other most of our waking hours.
Stephanie Carter, Yoga Philosophy You Can Use
What to Do About Them?
Yoga is designed to systematically address the five afflictions, or kleshas.
Sutra 2.10 warns against assuming that a temporary state of clarity is permanent.
Yoga Systematically Addresses the Five Afflictions
We look out into the material world and identify ourselves with it. Identified with a material world that is completely beyond our control, we are consumed with fear. The good news is that yoga systematically deconstructs this fear, and with it, the five afflictions. Our true nature is not material but spiritual, and we suffer from mistaken identity. Yoga is a path to our true nature. This truth can be readily tested at the conclusion of any [yoga] practice. The problem is estrangement from self. Check in with yourself at the end of your yoga practice and see if you haven’t experienced a miracle of healing. See if you do not feel more at home in your body, more at home in you life, more at home in your spirit. This sense of coming home is real. You have come closer to the truth about yourself, and that is why you feel peace.
Learn more here. Select from the quick menu to go deep into each klesha.
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