Patanjali's five kleshas (afflictions) framework identifies ignorance and ego-clinging as anxiety's deeper roots beneath surface symptoms.
The Yoga Sutras identify five kleshas (root afflictions): avidya (ignorance), asmita (ego-clinging), raga (craving), dvesha (aversion), and abhinivesha (fear of death). Anxiety sufferers typically focus on managing the symptom—panic, worry, physical tension—without addressing underlying kleshas. Patanjali teaches that surface anxiety persists because deeper ignorance remains: misidentification with the mind's contents, attachment to threatened self-image, craving for certainty in an uncertain world, and primal death-anxiety. For example, social anxiety often stems from asmita (ego-clinging): defending a threatened self-image. Health anxiety reflects abhinivesha: existential terror of impermanence. Generalized anxiety involves raga-dvesha imbalance: craving control and avoiding discomfort in a world offering neither. By applying this framework, practitioners identify which klesha drives their specific anxiety pattern, then apply targeted practices. Someone trapped in asmita benefits from ego-dissolution meditation; someone caught in raga-dvesha develops equanimity practices. This diagnostic precision transforms anxiety treatment from generic symptom-suppression to root-cause resolution.
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