The 5 Kleshas: Yoga's Five Causes of Suffering, Explained
The 5 kleshas are the five afflictions that Patanjali's Yoga Sutras name as the root causes of human suffering: avidya (ignorance of our true nature), asmita (egoism, or mistaken identity), raga (attachment), dvesha (aversion) and abhinivesha (clinging to life, felt as the fear of death). The word klesha comes from a Sanskrit root meaning to torment or afflict — these are the things that make the mind hurt.
Patanjali lists all five in a single thread (Yoga Sutras 2.3), and the tradition's claim is bold: every variety of everyday misery grows from one of these five roots. This guide explains each klesha's classical meaning, what it looks like on an ordinary weekday, and what the tradition says practice can do about them.
Where do the 5 kleshas come from?
The kleshas appear early in the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras — the Sadhana Pada, "the chapter on practice" — and their placement matters. Patanjali opens the chapter with the working discipline he calls kriya yoga — tapas (discipline), svadhyaya (self-study) and ishvara pranidhana (surrender) (Yoga Sutras 2.1) — and states its purpose at once: to cultivate deep meditation and to weaken the kleshas (2.2). Only then does he name them (2.3). The kleshas, in other words, are what the whole practice — including the eight limbs of yoga described later in the same chapter — is for.
One structural point comes first: avidya is not one affliction among five — it is the field in which the other four grow (2.4). Weed the field, and the rest lose their soil.
The five kleshas at a glance
# | Klesha (Sanskrit) | Plain meaning | Felt in daily life as |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Avidya | Ignorance of our true nature | Mistaking the temporary for the permanent; "this will finally make me happy" |
2 | Asmita | Egoism, mistaken identity | Being your job title, body or opinions — and defending them like your life |
3 | Raga | Attachment to pleasure | Craving, clinging; "again, more, don't stop" |
4 | Dvesha | Aversion to pain | Avoidance, resentment, the flinch from discomfort |
5 | Abhinivesha | Clinging to life | Fear of death — and its cousins: fear of change, endings, the unknown |
Avidya — ignorance of what we are
Avidya does not mean lacking information. Patanjali defines it precisely (2.5): mistaking the impermanent for the permanent, the impure for the pure, suffering for happiness, the not-self for the Self. It is a mis-seeing — treating passing things as solid, and outer things as the source of an inner state.
On an ordinary Tuesday, avidya sounds like: once I get the promotion, I'll relax. Once the renovation is done, we'll be happy. The mis-seeing is expecting a changing thing to deliver unchanging satisfaction — we suffer, the tradition says, not because life changes but because we keep expecting it not to. Because avidya is the root, you don't fight it directly; you dissolve it slowly through clear seeing, which is why self-study sits at the heart of the method.
Asmita — the mistaken "I"
Asmita — egoism, or "I-am-ness" — is awareness confusing itself with its instruments (2.6): the body, the thoughts, the roles. You can watch it operate in real time: someone criticises a project you led, and it lands as an attack on you — because somewhere along the way "my work" quietly became "me." The same fusion happens with the body, with opinions, with the curated self online. The remedy isn't self-erasure; it is the repeated noticing that you have a role, a body, a view — and are not reducible to any of them.
Raga — attachment
Raga is the craving that trails after pleasure (2.7). Something feels good; the mind files it, replays it and starts organising life around getting it again. The pleasure is innocent — the klesha is the clinging, the conversion of "that was lovely" into "I need that."
Modern life is a raga amplifier: the refresh pull, the third coffee, the episode past midnight, the praise re-read. Even yoga is not immune — chasing one good savasana through a month of practice is raga wearing yoga clothes. The Bhagavad Gita's path of karma yoga can be read as raga-training: act fully, release the grip on the pleasant result.
Dvesha — aversion
Dvesha is raga's mirror twin: the recoil that trails after pain (2.8). Something hurt once; the mind files that too, and builds a fence around it. The Sutras treat attachment and aversion as one mechanism running in opposite directions — the mind governed by past experience rather than present reality.
Daily-life dvesha is ordinary: the email you keep not opening, the conversation postponed a fourth week, the hamstring stretch you always skip. What we avoid runs us just as thoroughly as what we crave — usually at higher interest.
Abhinivesha — clinging to life
The fifth klesha is the deepest and, Patanjali notes with striking honesty, it persists even in the wise (2.9). Abhinivesha is the instinctive clinging to life — the fear of death no argument fully talks away, because it doesn't live where arguments reach.
It surfaces as fear of endings in every size: leaving a job that no longer fits, a relationship changing shape, a chapter closing. The tradition doesn't shame this fear, but it observes that a mind clenched against endings cannot be fully present for anything. Every savasana, it quietly suggests, is a small rehearsal in letting go.
The four stages of a klesha
A practical refinement (2.4): each klesha exists in four states —
Prasupta — dormant. A seed, currently quiet. (The temper you haven't lost in years — because nothing has tested it.)
Tanu — attenuated. Thinned by practice; it arises, but weakly.
Vicchinna — interrupted. Displaced by a stronger current — the irritation that vanishes during a new project and returns when it stalls.
Udara — fully active. Up, loud, running the show.
The map is quietly encouraging: practice is working even when a klesha still arises, if it arises thinner than before.
Are yoga's kleshas the same as Buddhism's?
The word is shared; the lists differ. Buddhist teaching also uses klesha for the afflictions at the root of suffering; its common five-fold list is attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride and jealousy. The overlap with Patanjali's five — ignorance, attachment and aversion in both — reflects a shared Indian contemplative conversation, not one tradition copying the other. This article stays with Patanjali's list, the one yoga students meet in the Sutras; the other is a cousin, not a contradiction.
How yoga practice works on the kleshas
Patanjali never promises the kleshas vanish on request. The method is gradual and layered.
First, weaken them through kriya yoga (2.1–2.2). Tapas builds the discipline to stay when raga and dvesha say run; svadhyaya turns the light of study on your own patterns; ishvara pranidhana loosens the grip on outcomes.
Then, meet the active ones in meditation. The Sutras teach that the kleshas' gross movements are subdued through meditation (2.11) — not by arguing with a craving, but by sitting with it until it is seen as a passing event rather than a command. Their subtlest traces, the tradition holds, dissolve only as clear seeing matures — the long arc the eight limbs are built to walk.
A tip from our teaching hall: don't start with avidya — the root is hardest to see directly, and students who begin there produce essays, not change. Start with raga and dvesha, the two you can catch red-handed a dozen times a day. Every noticed pull toward or push away is a klesha caught in the act — and noticing is the first loosening.
Spotting the kleshas on an ordinary day
A one-week observation practice we give students — recognition first, correction later:
Morning: notice the first reach of the day (phone, coffee, news). No judgement — just name it: raga.
Work: when criticism stings, ask what exactly felt attacked? Usually a role or image — asmita in daylight.
Afternoon: find the thing you're avoiding. Open the email, or at least admit the avoidance — dvesha named is dvesha halved.
Evening: when the day resists ending — one more episode, one more scroll — notice the tiny refusal of an ending. Abhinivesha in miniature.
Night: one minute of svadhyaya: which klesha ran the most of me today? Over a week, most people find their leader.
In our 200-hour yoga teacher training, the kleshas come up in the daily philosophy class — usually the week the first excitement fades and twenty people living closely together start meeting their own raga, dvesha and asmita. That's not a failure of the course — the kleshas showing up is the syllabus.
Frequently asked questions
What are the 5 kleshas of Patanjali?
Avidya (ignorance of our true nature), asmita (egoism), raga (attachment to pleasure), dvesha (aversion to pain) and abhinivesha (clinging to life, felt as fear of death) — listed in the Yoga Sutras at 2.3, with avidya as the root and field of the other four.
What are the 5 kleshas of Buddhism?
Buddhist teaching's common five-fold list is attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride and jealousy. The traditions share the core trio of ignorance, attachment and aversion; the remaining members differ. This article follows Patanjali's yogic list.
What are the 4 stages of kleshas?
Per the Yoga Sutras (2.4), each klesha can be dormant (prasupta), attenuated by practice (tanu), interrupted by a stronger current (vicchinna) or fully active (udara). Practice aims first to thin the active ones, then to keep the seeds from re-sprouting.
What are the 5 sources of suffering?
In yoga philosophy, the five kleshas themselves — every flavour of mental pain, the tradition claims, traces to ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion or the clinging to life, with avidya as the taproot.
Can the kleshas ever be removed completely?
The tradition says yes — and honestly describes it as the work of the entire path, not a weekend technique. What practitioners report along the way is kleshas arising less often, less loudly, with a shorter grip; by the Sutras' own four-stage model, that thinning is the practice succeeding.
Where to go deeper
The kleshas are the "why" of yoga practice; the eight limbs of yoga are the "how," and karma yoga is the version of the work you can do without leaving your desk. To study it the traditional way — a daily philosophy class, the Sutras read slowly, a month of noticing your own kleshas beside the Ganga — see our 200-hour yoga teacher training in Rishikesh. Questions first? Message us on WhatsApp; real humans answer.
References
Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, Sadhana Pada — especially 2.1–2.2 (kriya yoga and its purpose), 2.3 (the five kleshas), 2.4 (avidya as the field; the four states), 2.5–2.9 (definitions of each klesha), 2.11 (meditation subdues their active forms). Any faithful translation with commentary is suitable for study.
Bhagavad Gita — companion classical text; its teaching on acting without attachment to results addresses raga and dvesha directly.
Author note (byline): Gangesha Adi (E-RYT 500) leads the teaching team at Pure Soul Yoga School, Rishikesh, where the Yoga Sutras — kleshas included — are a daily philosophy class he has taught to teacher-training students from 50+ nationalities over the past decade.
