The Five Kleshas — Root Causes of All Suffering
Patanjali identifies five afflictions (kleshas) that are the root cause of all human suffering: ignorance, ego, attraction, aversion, and clinging to life. Yoga practice systematically dissolves each one.
Sutra 2.3 introduces the five kleshas: Avidya (ignorance of our true nature), Asmita (false identification with ego), Raga (attraction, craving), Dvesha (aversion, repulsion), and Abhinivesha (clinging to life, fear of death). Sutra 2.4 reveals their hierarchical relationship: Avidya is the root of all the others — when we are ignorant of our true nature as pure consciousness, we identify with the ego, which then generates craving and aversion, which generate the fear of death. The entire edifice of human suffering is built on Avidya. This architecture of suffering is remarkably consistent with Buddhist (the five hindrances), Advaita Vedanta, and modern cognitive-behavioral therapy's concept of core beliefs generating automatic thoughts and emotional reactions.
Ignorance, ego-sense, attraction, aversion, and clinging to life are the five afflictions.
Psychologist Mark Epstein's Thoughts Without a Thinker draws a detailed parallel between Patanjali's five kleshas and the Freudian psychoanalytic structure — arguing that both systems describe the same psychological architecture of suffering from radically different angles.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali