Abhinivesha

Abhinivesha

The last of the Kleshas is Abhinivesha sometimes translated as “fear of loss” or “fear of change”. Barbara Stoll Miller’s translation is my favorite though, “will to live”. This gets at not just our desire to survive but at the biological forces at play that keep us alive. Of course the forces that keep us alive, emotional or biological, respond to our internal and external environment. If you’re under nourished the signals to spur you to find food are sent to your central nervous system and back to your body where certain detectable physiological reactions can be measured. Growling stomach, increased saliva, light headedness among other responses. If we feel threatened the same process takes place. Here, we may experience phenomena such as improved vision, increased heart rate, quicker muscular movement and endurance. Whatever the circumstances, along with the biological response comes an emotional response, often an unsavory response. We’ve all been hangry or short tempered due to sleepiness.

The emotional response to our biological state is something that we can have direct influence over. It takes a strong will to overcome some of those behaviors but with awareness and discipline they can be overcome. We should prepare ourselves for certain situations. Take for example, coming home after a long day of work. We should learn that the chances our mood has been altered by the bombardment of engagement with coworkers, colleagues, bosses and clients as well as exhaustion is probable. In knowing this, we come home prepared and may need to communicate with our friends and family, even our pets (I often talk to Roshi about it!) that our behavior is less than ideal.

Life keeps happening though. We cannot expect ourselves to use this as an excuse to act in a less than kind way. This is not the way of the Karma Yogi. We apply our discipline and attempt to override the trials of the day and be our better selves.