Book
REVIEW
FUNDAMENTALS OF PATANJALI’S PHILOSOPHY: THEORY OF KLESHA AND KARMA BY PRASHANT IYENGAR BY ANNE-MARIE SCHULTZ
This book offers a detailed exploration of the concepts klesha and karma. The book has a preface and 40 short chapters, each filled with philosophical insight and linguistic nuance. I will try to give a concise overview. In the preface, Prashant observes that our yogic practice has become “nonYoga” because we fail to pay attention to the philosophical underpinnings of yoga. We can only practice the essential aspect of yoga “after one has evolved Karma Consciousness.” I take that the aim of this book is to facilitate this evolution within us. In Chapter One, Prashant turns to The Bhagavad Gita to illustrate the pervasiveness of karma. Karma shapes every aspect of existence, our evolution, and our devolution. The cycle of life and death, of birth and rebirth is governed by karma. In fact, according to Prashant, “karma does not even end at death. Death is more a new beginning than an end.” The pervasiveness of karma can seem overwhelming, but we must come to see it as “fascinating and challenging apart from being essential.” This book facilitates our fascination with the karmic concept. Prashant delineates numerous questions we should ask about karma as we engage the concept philosophically. He insists that the first basic mistake we make about karma is to confuse it with mere action. Karma is much more than what we do. Karma gets at the root of action, the why we do what we do. Karma is “the sum of why we do, what happens or would happen by what we do and dynamically what we do.” Culling this understanding within ourselves is “karmic literacy.” Prashant develops this sense of karmic literacy in Chapter Two. He talks about the sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic karma by referring to The Bhagavad Gita. He also explains that our body (kaya), speech (vacha), and mind (manas) are instruments of karma. Prashant calls our attention to many different levels and kinds of karma, including the karma of daily life, the karma of cosmic forces, the karma of past actions, and the karma of future and unseen lives. And he shows how centrally embedded they are in every aspect of existence. After emphasizing the pervasiveness of karma, Prashant then turns our attention to the
34
kleshas (afflictions): “the kleshas totally and thoroughly permeate the karmas.” In Chapter Three, Prashant reminds us of the five kleshas— avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha, and abhinivesha. Though our yogic aim is to eradicate or at least attenuate them, we cannot “declare an open war against the kleshas.” As karma is woven into the fabric of our being, the kleshas are just as embedded in the patterns of our habitual practices. Prashant observes, “the combination of klesha and karma are inseparable.” Chapters Four through Twelve explore each of the five kleshas in detail. Prashant begins this exploration by noting that it is best not to think of the kleshas as five distinct afflictions. Rather, all the kleshas are manifestations or phases of avidya (ignorance). He explains, “They perform different functions in their five phases.” I found his treatment of abhinivesha particularly thought provoking: It is “both raag and dvesha in a magnified form.” He even regards suicide in these terms as well: “The attachment-thwarted or aversion-embracing condition becomes the cause of suicide.” In Chapter Fourteen, Prashant turns to Patanjali’s concept of Dhyana (meditation). Dhyana is the state where the fluctuations of the mind cease their interaction with the kleshas. Prashant notes that there are three main ways Patanjali uses Dhyana. The first involves a process of making the mind “undisfigured.” The second involves making the mind placid and calm, which happens after the mind has become undisfigured. The third is “a process of transcendent mind of yogi going to the cosmic plane for revelation.” In Chapters Fifteen through Nineteen, Prashant refocuses on various types of karma, ranging from the karma associated with our free will to the karma of our destiny, but the consideration of the kleshas is never forgotten as the kleshas are really responsible for our karmic state—“this fiasco,” as Prashant puts it. We should not completely despair, however, because we are always given the opportunity to change course. Prashant focuses on teachings from Vyasa and The Bhagavad Gita to illustrate this point. Even “death itself is a new beginning and
Yoga Samachar Spring / Summer 2016
