Craving and Aversion are sources of misery

Chapter 8 - The Veils Of Misery 

Day 64 

Dwesha is hatred. Hatred or aversion brings an unpleasant experience. Aversion brings the same misery as craving. Both craving and aversion are sources of misery. Abhinivesha is fear - fear of the unknown. Though intellectually you may know everything, you will have a bit of abhinivesha. This fear exists even in scholars.

Nature has imposed these fears in everybody. If they become thin, you will be evolved and if they remain thick, you will stay unevolved. These fears and miseries have four stages. The first stage is when they are dormant in you The next sutra is prasupta avastha.

These miseries can be prasupta - asleep or dormant. Tanu means very feeble, almost non-existent. Prachchinna means that when one of the miseries becomes dominant, the others subside. When there is a craving, aversion subsides. So does fear and the other miseries. 

And when there is avidya or ignorance, you are not even aware of the two things in you - you and your mind, you and your perception, your intellect. You are not aware that your mind is telling you something. You don't feel there is any difference between you and your mind. 

You are so totally caught up in a situation. When you are conscious and aware, then you know what your mind is telling you. You will see that difference in you. If you are conscious and aware and you do something wrong, you will wonder what has happened to you, whether you are going crazy? 

When a person has really become crazy, he will not be aware that he has become so. This is because he and his mind has become one. It is unable to see the distinction. Sometimes you get angry but you are not expressing the anger. You know that you are angry but you are not expressing the anger. 

You know that you are angry and you wonder why you are so. Or you may become lustful and be aware of it. But, a person who loses his temper is not aware that he is angry. He becomes the anger. So, sadhana makes these five kleshas, or sources of misery, as thin as possible with the passage of time. 

You had been getting angry before you were on the spiritual path and after, too. But there is a big difference in the quality of anger. There is a shift. After being on the spiritual path, the anger has become tanu-thinned down. The curtain has become more and more transparent.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS