2.5 antiya ashuchi duhkha anatmasu nitya shuchi sukha atman khyatih avidya
Ignorance (avidya) is of four types: 1) regarding that which is transient as eternal, 2) mistaking the impure for pure, 3) thinking that which brings misery to bring happiness, and 4) taking that which is not-self to be self.

Ok, we avoid things.  Why?  The yoga sutras categorize it into four main reasons – we’re messed up temporaly, we can’t see the trees for the forest, we love misery, and we don’t know who we are.  Ok, that’s the harsher version, and a bit over the top, but I do it for literary effect.

Here one day, Gone the next

What is eternal? Ask a physicist, and he or she might say energy.  But that all decays into unordered chaos anyway.  The rut you’re in seem pretty eternal?  Are you eternal?  No, no.  That one’s obvious – we all die.  What about your family history and heritage?  No, no.  There are families we’ll never know about.  Maybe for a few thousand years, if you’re really good.  Well, then what about the earth we’re on?  No.  The sun will eventually explode and the planet will be gone.  Our galaxy?  Well, black holes and all.  So… Nothing really eternal.

And yet we’re so worried about how our homes will look when company comes over.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s rather transient, to say the least.

Purity

Mistaking the impure for the pure?  Well, that sounds kinda fru-fru, no?  But if you think of impure as having impurities in your water, or dirt on your clean floor, you can start to get the idea of how they affect the nature of what is pure.  Separating that out is hard, of course, but once the impurities are removed, there is more clarity – and less ignorance.

The sutras argue that not knowing what is pure and impure is a form of ignorance, a form of avoidance.  It colors our thoughts to think of something as other than what it is.  And really, that’s just a basic tautology – we label things as pure and impure, and draw conclusions and inferences from there, and mislabeling them will have us draw incorrect conclusions.  It may not be a life-changing difference, in many cases, but maybe, when it’s all added up, those little difference do change our lives in subtle, but significant ways.

Happiness and Misery

Thinking that we’re getting happiness out of things that actually bring us misery?  That never happens, no?  (Feel free to laugh heartily here.)  I suppose the holidays are the best example of this.  We have fabulous intensions of wonderful family gatherings that should be warm and loving, but are really tense and uncomfortable.  Or perhaps the workout that we chose, not because it’s the one we like, but it’s because it’s the one we’re told will make us lose weight the fastest, though we are miserable and eat an extra piece of candy on the way home from the gym to soothe our mind.

Figuring out what is real happiness is hard, and figuring out what is real misery as opposed to just mental resistance to a challenge is even harder.  But there’s resistance to a challenge, and there’s misery.  Neither of those are happiness.  The former may help us improve as a person, when we overcome it, but the later?  It just makes us miserable.

The Self

And the last form of avoidance – mistaking the not-self for the self.  No, no, I don’t mean all of high-school, though there’s a lot of that too.  Nor do I mean trying to make the boss like you at work.  I mean really trying to convince yourself, making yourself believe that you are something you’re not.  Maybe you’re artistic, but you want to earn the money (and, you think, respect) of an engineer.  So you try to convince yourself that you are an engineer, and not painter.  Or perhaps you simply are not a parenting type, but your family, your culture, insists that you’re wrong, and you try to convince yourself otherwise.

It may not be easy to figure out what the true self is.  I find, in the American culture of externalities, of conformation, of craziness, it’s a lifetime journey.  At least I hope it is, because then I might be able to get somewhere in this lifetime.  But at least the search is interesting, and trying to figure out what is not the self is just as important as figuring out what is the self.

2.3 avidya asmita raga dvesha abhinivesha pancha klesha
There are five kinds of coloring (kleshas):
1) igorance or avoidance of the true nature of things (avidya),
2) egoism of the mind over the consciousness (asmita),
3) attachment to thought patterns or objects (raga),
4) aversion to thought patterns or objects (dvesha),
5) attachment to these states or fear of the loss of them as death (abhinivesha).

avidya, my friend.  Well, I suppose, not really my friend.  But it seems a frequent companion.

How often do you find yourself saying “oh, I can get all this done today” when  – if you really honestly evaluated the situation – you would know that you were overextending yourself?

How often do you find yourself with an unpleasant task, perhaps a mound of laundry, a garden full of weeds, a boring assignment at work, a messy garage to tidy, or something else, that you just overlook, not really seeing it for what it is?  And then, one day, you notice “Wow, my backyard isn’t a yard, it’s a jungle of weeds.”  (And now, you see that I am not a big fan of cleaning.  I definitely am working on my avoidance of the true nature of entropy in my house.)

I’m tempted to believe that our culture encourages this.  We have so many options, so many distractions, available to us, that it’s easy to overlook something, and focus instead on something else.  We can hang out with friends, read a book, watch a TV show, go to a concert, play a computer game… The list is endless.  All instead of looking at what is really around us.

You can argue that it doesn’t really hurt us to do this, that it is good to let go of the hangups of having all our laundry put away, an impecable garage (which isn’t really the centerpoint of our life, after all), and so on.  But what if we do the same thing to ourselves?

If we ignore the true nature of who we are, in favor of who we think we should be, is that really so benign?  If we avoid the true nature of what we are called to do (our dharma), is that really “no big deal”?  Or is it going to affect everything else that we experience in our lives?

I can hear some eyerolls out there.  You may think I’m either a new-age-hippie-freak, spent a little too much time drinking the psycho-yoga punch, or am just a bit wacked out.  But try thinking about it at a “less big deal” level.  If you always wear sunglasses, it is going to affect everything you see.  If you always wear earplugs, it is going to affect everything you hear.  And if you always avoid what is really there – externally, but internally as well – it’s going to affect how clearly, fully, and authentically you can see the world as it truely is to be seen by you.

None of us are perfect at this, and it can be a frustrating, life long effort.  But the effort, the journey of exploring this avoidance, this lack of knowledge, it is one of experience, of life.  And what more can we ask for ourselves, but to live full of life.

Of course, the sutras have an answer. They always do.

Sutra 2.1:
tapah svadhyaya ishvara-pranidhana kriya-yogah
The yoga of action consists of three parts: purifying the senses (tapas), contextualized self-study (svadhyaya), and devotion and release into that which is more than our ego-self. (ishvara-pranidhana).

(It’s worth noting that the last part is my own take on the interpretation.)

So, even the yoga sutras, which are supposed to be a guiding instruction in all this is saying “just let it go”.  Well, yeah.  That’s what the whole eight limbs is all about.  Self-control of the self, observances in relationation to others, physical exercises, breath work,  sensory withdrawl, concentration, meditation, enlightenment.  It’s all so easy, and we all have these simple lives that give us plenty of time to practice this.  Oh, wait… that first sentence up there…

That’s where I think the yoga sutras give us a little insight that can help us.

Sutra 2.5:
antiya ashuchi duhkha anatmasu nitya shuchi sukha atman khyatih avidya
There are four types of ignorance: thinking of the transient as eternal, mistaking the impure as pure, thinking those things which really bring misery will actually bring happiness, and mistaking that which is not the true self for the true self.

How much of our stress from the day, the week, the whatever, comes from this avidya (ignorance)?  Are you stressed over something in our job that we think is a big, long-lasting “THING”, that really is fairly transient in the grand scheme of our lives, and the lives of everyone around you?  Or perhaps you are stressed by thinking that completing everything on that overly detailed to-do list will make you feel happy, when you’ll just feel miserable trying to achieve an unachievable goal?

But when we’re in the middle of our stress, can we even think of these things?  I know I have trouble with it.  Taking a look at the sutras, though, using them to remind us “LOOK!”, can be a little kick in the behind, a little nudge that even if we don’t have time to go to an hour and a half long yoga class, and do half an hour of meditation before bed, we can do a little bit of work to get a little closer to an uncluttered mind, a calm body, and understanding our true self.