Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 11.3

avidya-asmita-raga-dvesa-abhinivesah klesahThe causes of suffering/the obstacles are ignorance/misapprehsnsions, consciousness of “I”(egotism)/consused values, attachment/excessive attachments, repulsion/unreasonable dislikes, and fear (of death)/insecurity. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 11.3

KLESHAS(causes of suffering, afflictions, torments, mistakes)result because prakriti (human nature/our nature) forgets its eternal source/identity as purusha

Avidya • ignorance • misunderstanding • inexperience • erroneous certitude

Asmita • consciousness of “I” • awareness of one’s existence • egoism • the ego

Raga • passion • passionate desire • ardent burning interest • attachment

Dvesa • repulsion • aversion • hate • hostility • antipathy

Abhinivesah • fear • sentiment of insecurity • stubborness in keeping alive • the above taken from The Essence of Yoga by Bernard Bouanchaud

Emotional Releases in Yoga The following is a bulleted summary of The Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Do by Candace Pert (Simon & Schuster Touchstone, 1997) By Gayle Kimball, PhD posted June 11, 2011 • Cell receptors are the interface between emotions and tissue. • The cell’s brain is comprised of the receptors that float on its membrane. • A neuron may have millions of receptors. • A receptor is a single molecule made up of strings of amino acids, like beads on a necklace, perhaps the most complicated molecule there is. • A receptor vibrates and hums as it changes shape, waiting to pick up • messages that diffuse through the fluids surrounding the cells.

Ligands: Chemical Keys • A ligand is the chemical key that fits in the receptor, in a process called binding, “sex on a molecular level.” • About 95 percent of ligands are peptides, smaller strings of amino acids. Examples of peptides are insulin and hormones—excluding the steroid sex hormones. • The second type are neurotransmitters such as serotonin, usually made in the brain to carry information across the gap (synapse) between neurons. • The third type are steroids including testosterone, progesterone, and estrogen.

Chemical Information Exchange • The chemical exchange of information molecules is a second nervous system, and the most ancient. It allows the different systems to communicate with each other (i.e., the endocrine, neurological and immune). • The brain’s food is glucose, carried in the blood, which fuels the neurons to secrete messenger chemicals (neurotransmitters and neuropeptides) and the glial cells to work on the nerve endings in an “ongoing sculpting of connections.”199

Molecules of Emotion • Pert coined the phrase “molecules of emotion” in response to her finding that 85 to 95 percent of the neuropeptide receptors are found in the emotion centers, the limbic, or “mamalian” brain. • Paul MacLeanfirst described the brain as having three layers which represent evolution; first, the brainstem or reptilian brain (responsible for autonomic functions such as breathing and body temperature). The limbic system encircles the top of the brainstem. It’s the source of emotions and where trauma gets stuck. The cerebral cortex in the forebrain is the place we think and reason.

Emotion Centers • They [emotion centers] include the amygdala (almond-shaped structures on either side of the forebrain, about an inch into your brain from your earlobes), hippocampus and limbic cortex. • Pert’s group of scientists discovered that high concentrations of neuropeptides exist in most locations (“nodal points”) where information from the five senses enters the nervous system. • Receptors are also found on immune cells for almost every peptide found in the brain. Thus the immune system can send and receive information from the brain via the peptides, and the brain is another nodal point in the network. • “Using neuropeptides as the cue, our bodymind retrieves or represses emotions and behaviors,” since change at the receptor level is the molecular basis of memory. 200

Memory and EmotionThe five activities [of the mind] are comprehension, misapprehension, imagination, deep sleep, and memory. Sutra 1.6 • Memories are stored in the body, as well as the brain, especially in the receptorsbetween nerves and cell bodies called ganglia. We pay attention to some information and ignore the rest, as otherwise we would be overwhelmed. Pert deduces this means memory processes are emotion-driven and that emotions. . .[manifest in the body as] peptide ligands. • “Peptides are the sheet music containing the notes, phrases, and rhythms that allow the orchestra—your body—to play as an integrated entity.” • Memory and performance are, therefore, influenced by mood. • “Emotional states or moods are produced by the various neuropeptide ligands, and what we experience as an emotion or a feeling is also a mechanism for activating a particular neuronal circuit—simultaneously throughout the brain and body—which generates a behavior.”201 • Pert believes that there is one kind of peptide for each emotion.

Pert believes “repressed emotions are stored in the body—the unconscious mind—via the release of neuropeptide ligands, and that memories are held in their receptors.”202 • Emotions, then“are at the nexus between matter and mind, going back and forth between the two and influencing both.”203 • The brain, glands, and immune system are linked in an intelligent information network of neuropeptides and receptors which create emotions. This means “emotion-affecting peptides, then, actually appear to control routing and migration of monocytes, which are very pivotal to the overall health of the organism.”205 • Even if we don’t understand the details of the interaction between emotions and cell receptors, it’s important for healers to know the connection exists and that it can be influenced consciously. • This is the basis for neuropsychoimmunology, the study of the ways in which the mind, body and nervous system interact to produce health or illness.

Psychoneuroimmunology • This new science (of which Deepak Chopra is the most vocal proponent) believes • there are no accidents because a consciousness pervades the universe which is not basically matter. • Sub-atomic particles are fluctuations of energy, not matter. • Our senses fool us into thinking what we experience is solid, predictable, and unchanging. What we perceive as matter is mostly empty with fluctuations of energy, information and intelligence. • In fact, we continually rebuild our bodies as atoms flow in and out, including atoms right now that used to be in the body of Jesus, Buddha, Hitler, etc. • We make new skin every month, a new skeleton every three months, new DNA every six weeks, so that by the end of next year we will have replaced 98% of the atoms in our bodies. • Everything changes although consciousness or soul outlives the death of molecules.

Purusha and Avidya • Purusha is that which sees, Desikachar, 12 • Avidya is error, misperception • In yoga we have tools to dissolve the veils of misperception and delusion that determine our thoughts and actions so that we can experience purusha either as our true nature or as an indwelling spirit within us • These tools are tapas (heat, cleansing discipline), svadhyaya (self study) , and ishvara pranidhana (surrender to the Lord/a force-energy greater than ourselves).

We are also able to change our lives when we change the way we think. If the premises of Candace Pert and Deepak Chopra and the teachings of the Yogic texts are correct, our physical bodies become what we think and feel. Asana practice begins to release our “stuff” to make space for new and healthier perceptions. Eventually we allow these perceptions to “think, feel and act through us.”

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 11.3