The third affliction of the mind is Raga which is described as “clinging, anusayi, to happiness” Raga is the attachment to the temporary and evanescent pleasures thrown by Nature or prakriti to the soul inorder to keep it in her net of bondage. This includes attachment to all forms of happiness which nature can give from the lowest tamasic pleasures of sleep and indolence, joys of the body and senses, higher rajasic pleasures of the vital being in wealth and action and creation and success and name and fame and the highest sattwic pleasures of the intellectual, ethic and aesthetic being in knowledge and virtue and beauty. All these, including the happiness of the sattwic mind, when they are clung to with attachment become source of bondage for the soul. Bhagavat Gita echoes a similar thought when describing nature of the triple qualities of Prakriti; it says that Sattwa binds by its attachment to knowledge and happiness and Rajas by its attachment to works and Tamas by its attachment to sloth, sleep and indolence.
This doesn’t mean a Yogi has to reject these pleasures and activities of the mind and senses with an ascetic revulsion. A Yogi who has achieved true inner detachment can enjoy sense pleasures without craving and feel the joy of intellectual and aesthetic pursuits or emotional relationship without any clinging grip of desire on them. His happiness is not dependent on these external objects, activities or support. He can be as happy and peaceful without them.
The fourth affliction is Dvesha and defined in almost similar terms as “attachment, anusayi, to sorrow (or pain) dukka”. But how can there be any attachment to pain or sorrow? Clinging to happiness is something which we can understand. But is there in us attachment to sorrow also? In most of the translations and interpretations of yogasutra the word Dvesha is translated as dislike for the painful. But Yoga sutra’s definition of Dvesha does not suggest this traditional meaning of Dvesha. Raga is defined as clinging anusayi to happiness sukkah and Dvesha, using the same term anusayi, is defined in the same manner as “clinging to pain”. To a surface view such an attachment to sorrow may appear as something morbid and a reasonably healthy mind cannot have such perverse attachment. This may be true at the conscious levels of our mind but at the subconscious levels of our mind we are not as healthy noble and reasonable as we are in our conscious parts.
In the flow of life and in the energy of Nature, Prakriti, nothing is static or permanent, both, sorrow and happiness of Prakriti are impermanent and pass away in the flow of time. When there is in us a true, deep and complete Yogic detachment to these lolly-pops and whips of Nature we are free; joys and grief’s of life pass swiftly, without affecting us deeply or causing much disturbance to our inner calm and peace. But we don’t have this inner calm because there is an clinging attachment in the conscious mind to happiness and a perverse attachment to sorrow in the subconscious parts of life-force prana. This vital being in us likes joy as well as sorrow; without them it finds life tasteless and dull. The following exquisite verses from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri describe this truth of the life-force in us:
“Tired soon of too much joy and happiness
She needs the spur of pleasure and pain
And the native taste of suffering and unease………
A perverse savour haunts her thirsting lips
for the grief she weeps which came from her own choice
For the pleasure yearns that racked with wounds her breast”
But Dvesha includes not only attachment to sorrow but also to all that leads to sorrow like negative thoughts and feelings. This is the reason why some times we find so difficult to get rid of some obstinate negative thoughts and feelings. Our conscious minds might have realised clearly the harmfullness and misery of these negative thoughts and feelings like hatred, jealousy etc. and ready to reject it. But they still persist obstinately because somewhere in the conscious or subconscious parts of our life-force, a little dark point clings vehemently to these negative feelings. There can be a similar subconscious clinging to illness, which prevents quick healing
So the term “Dvesha” in Yoga-sutra is used not in the traditional grammatical sense as aversion or hatred but in a deeper psychological significance, perceived with a Yogic insight into the nature of life-force.
