---
type: Concept
bundle: yoga-darshana
bundle_version: "0.2.0"
id: abhinivesha
title: "Abhiniveśa"
iast: "Abhiniveśa"
devanagari: "अभिनिवेश"
description: "The pre-conscious clinging to continued existence (the fifth kleśa) — not fear of death, not survival instinct."
darshana:
  - Pātañjala Yoga
  - Sāṃkhya
text_source: "YS 2.9"
tags:
  - Yoga
  - Patanjali
  - klesha
  - survival-instinct
  - fear-of-death
  - citta
  - prakriti
not:
  - term: "fear of death"
    why: "fear of death is the conscious emotional experience; abhiniveśa is the pre-conscious clinging to existence that generates the fear"
    instead: "Keep Abhiniveśa untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "survival instinct"
    why: "survival instinct is biological; abhiniveśa is metaphysical, rooted in avidyā, not biology"
  - term: "attachment to life"
    why: "too diffuse; abhiniveśa is the specific kleśa of clinging to this particular continuity of self-experience"
  - term: "will to live"
    why: "Schopenhauer's \"will to live\" (Lebenswille) is a different framework; abhiniveśa is precisely located in the structure of the kleśa-s"
  - term: "anxiety"
    why: "anxiety is a psychological symptom; abhiniveśa is the metaphysical root from which death-anxiety arises"
related:
  - /concepts/klesha.md
  - /concepts/avidya-yoga.md
  - /concepts/asmita.md
  - /concepts/raga.md
  - /concepts/dvesha.md
  - /concepts/samskara.md
  - /concepts/kaivalya.md
  - /concepts/purusha.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Abhiniveśa — अभिनिवेश

**Not:** fear of death, survival instinct, attachment to life, will to live, anxiety

The fifth and final kleśa — the deep, pre-conscious clinging to continuity of self-experience. The substrate of what we call the survival instinct, fear of annihilation, and resistance to death. Unlike the preceding kleśa-s, abhiniveśa operates in beings at all stages, including the learned.

## Etymology

- *abhi* — toward, into; prefix of intensification
- *ni* — down, into; prefix of deep settling
- *viś* — to enter, to pervade
- *abhiniveśa* — the act of entering deeply into; hence: deep settling in, clinging-to, pervasive occupation

The term captures not surface-level fear but the way citta pervasively orients around the maintenance of its own continuity.

## Patañjali's Definition (YS 2.9)

*svarasavāhī viduṣo'pi tathārūḍho'bhiniveśaḥ*

"Abhiniveśa flows by its own momentum (*svarasa-vāhī*) and is firmly established (*tathārūḍhaḥ*) even in the learned (*viduṣo'pi*)."

Two features are definitive:

**Svarasa-vāhī (flows by its own momentum):** Abhiniveśa does not need an external threat to activate. It runs continuously as a background orientation of citta — a perpetual lean toward self-preservation that does not require a reason.

**Viduṣo'pi (even in the learned):** Unlike the other kleśa-s, which can be significantly weakened by knowledge, intellectual understanding, and prolonged study, abhiniveśa persists even in those who know perfectly well that the self is not the body. The scholar knows death is natural; the substrate of abhiniveśa still runs. This is what makes it the final and subtlest kleśa.

## Why Abhiniveśa Persists in the Learned

Vyāsa's commentary on YS 2.9 offers the answer: abhiniveśa is not an intellectual error that knowledge can fix. It is a saṃskāra-level imprint — a trace not from this life's experiences but from the accumulated weight of countless prior lives of self-preservation. The body-mind has successfully survived before. That prior success is what makes the current citta cling.

This is the evidence Patañjali offers for past-life saṃskāras: a newborn, who has had no learning in this life, already flinches from death. Where did that flinch come from? From the saṃskāras of prior births. Abhiniveśa is therefore both the deepest kleśa and the primary argument for rebirth within the Yoga Darśana framework.

## Abhiniveśa and Asmitā

Abhiniveśa depends on asmitā. The apparent self (asmitā) has accumulated, over many lifetimes, a vast set of rāga-s (pulls toward self-preserving experiences) and dveṣa-s (pushes away from self-ending experiences). The combined weight of these becomes abhiniveśa: not a fear of any particular death-experience but the overall deep structure of clinging to the continuation of this particular self-form.

When asmitā dissolves — when Puruṣa is permanently recognized as distinct from the Buddhi-body-mind complex — abhiniveśa has no basis. The one who knows they are not the body cannot cling to the body's continuation. This is why kaivalya dissolves abhiniveśa.

## Abhiniveśa as the Final Obstacle

In the arc of Patañjali's kleśa-theory:

| Kleśa | Nature | Dissolved by |
|-------|--------|--------------|
| Avidyā | Root misidentification | Viveka-khyāti |
| Asmitā | I-am-ness that makes the other kleśa-s possible | Viveka-khyāti maturing |
| Rāga | Pull of pleasure-memory | Nirodha / Kaivalya |
| Dveṣa | Push of pain-memory | Nirodha / Kaivalya |
| Abhiniveśa | Clinging to continuity — the last frontier | Kaivalya only |

The fifth kleśa is last because it is last to go. Even after rāga and dveṣa have been substantially thinned through practice, abhiniveśa can still operate. The tradition is honest about this: liberation is not an intellectual achievement but a total transformation of the citta that removes even this most embedded of clinging structures.

## Cross-References

- [Kleśa](klesha.md) — the five affliction-roots; abhiniveśa is the fifth and subtlest
- [Avidyā](avidya-yoga.md) — the root kleśa that makes abhiniveśa possible by establishing a false self to cling to
- [Asmitā](asmita.md) — the I-am-ness that generates an apparent self whose continuity abhiniveśa then protects
- [Rāga](raga.md) and [Dveṣa](dvesha.md) — the push-pull pair that, accumulated over lifetimes, builds the substrate from which abhiniveśa draws its force
- [Saṃskāra](samskara.md) — the stored impressions from prior lives that make abhiniveśa persist even in the learned
- [Kaivalya](kaivalya.md) — the only state that fully dissolves abhiniveśa; permanent liberation of Puruṣa from Prakṛti
- [Puruṣa](purusha.md) — the pure witness that was never born and can never die; seeing this clearly is what removes the kleśa of clinging to a mortal form

## Audience Metaphor

Abhiniveśa is the operating system that refuses to shut down — even when the session is over, even when the hardware is failing, even when the user has decided to stop. The OS clings to RAM, spawns background processes, resists the quit command. The instinct is not in the user (Puruṣa); it is in the operating system itself (Prakṛtic citta). And the OS does not know it is temporary software, not the machine.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali](/references/yoga-sutras.md) 2.9
2. [Yoga Bhāṣya of Vyāsa](/references/yoga-bhasya.md) on YS 2.9
3. [Sāṃkhya Kārikā](/references/samkhya-karika.md) of Īśvarakṛṣṇa
