About Dharma Desires and Interconnectedness (Part 3)

Finding one's way back to the original meaning

- Kum. Hella Naura

How difficult it is to get free of an undesirable quality, which as one of "a pair of opposites" might even be the other side of some good quality! This can be understood from what follows: "For, Arjuna, he who is free from the pairs of opposites is easily freed from bondage." Getting genuinely free of all bondage, i.e. free from all inner limitations, which, in the first place, means getting free of one's own unwanted or automatic thinking, is a very rare and great achievement.

In this writer's understanding and according to the definition given in Patanjali's "Yoga Sutra", it is the very aim of Yoga, i.e. "Yoga is the restraint (or: suppression) of mental modifications" and "Then the seer stands in his own nature (or: abides in itself)." 1.2/3. However, there exist more definitions of Yoga, such as "Yoga is excellence in work" or Yoga as equanimity" But the Shloka as cited above is incomplete. The whole Shloka says: "The Karmayogi who neither hates nor desires should be ever considered a renouncer. For, Arjuna, he who is free from the pairs of opposites is easily freed from bondage." BGV.3.

So in both the "Bhagavad Gita" and Patanjali's "Yoga Sutra" for getting inwardly freer, connections are stated between Karmayoga; pairs of opposites; the Kleshas in their forms of attachment and aversion; and desirelessness.

In Patanjali's Yoga Sutra ll.33 it says: "When these restraints and observances (i.e. the Yamas and Niyamas) are inhibited by perverse thoughts, the opposites should be thought of." And in Sutra II.48: "From that (i.e. perfection of Asanas) arises immunity from opposite conditions." And the outcome of the Kleshas of Ragaand Dvesha, in simplified form likes and dislikes, are, of course, desires.