Five Kinds of Disturbance ... Patanjali

1. Information from the senses has three aspects: direct perception of objects through the senses; thinking about those objects; and drawing conclusions about them; and learning about objects from other people.

2. Curiosity arises from the false belief that knowledge of external objects is true knowledge.

3. Concepts, theories and ideals engender goals which are false – which do not lead to freedom from disturbance.

4. Depression arises from the acceptance of evil as genuine and permanent, and hence the conviction that freedom from evil is impossible.

5. Memory turns perceptions of transient events and objects into permanent figments of the imagination. In this way, it causes people to confuse transience with permanence.

(Taken from the monthly magazine “Splendour”, November 2010)