The fluctuations of the mind are fivefold and are either painful or non-painful.

A Qualitative Filter Before the List

Before naming the five categories of mental activity, Patañjali inserts a filter that applies across all of them: every vṛtti is either kliṣṭa, coloured by affliction, or akliṣṭa, free of that colouring. This ordering is deliberate. It tells the student that the coming taxonomy is not a menu of good and bad mental states arranged side by side, but five functional modes, each of which can appear in either an afflicted or an unafflicted form. A memory can be kliṣṭa if it is soaked in resentment, or akliṣṭa if it is recalled cleanly as information. The same holds for inference, imagination, and even sleep.

What Makes a Fluctuation Kliṣṭa

Vyāsa ties the term kliṣṭa directly to the five kleśas he will name later: avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, and abhiniveśa. A fluctuation qualifies as kliṣṭa when it is produced by one of these afflictions or when it strengthens one of them through repetition, laying down a saṃskāra that later ripens as karma. Akliṣṭa fluctuations, by contrast, arise from a clearer, more sattvic condition of the citta and do not deposit that binding residue, even though they remain modifications requiring eventual quieting. Vācaspati Miśra observes that the same outward behaviour, such as correcting someone's error, can be kliṣṭa if driven by irritation or akliṣṭa if driven by care, since the deciding factor is the underlying affliction rather than the visible act.

Consequences for How the List Should Be Read

Because this qualitative distinction precedes the fivefold list, a reader is meant to approach pramāṇa, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, and smṛti not as a hierarchy from worst to best but as five neutral functions each capable of either orientation. This has a direct bearing on practice: the aim of classical yoga is not simply to stop thinking, since thinking itself is only one of five functions and none of the five is automatically the enemy. The real target is the afflicted colouring that can attach to any of them. A yogi who has quieted the mind but still harbours ego-driven memories has not accomplished what this sutra is pointing toward, while a mind still lightly active but free of kleśa-rooted colouring is closer to the aim than it might appear from the outside.

Sorting Thoughts by Colouring, Not Content

This practice trains recognition of kliṣṭa and akliṣṭa qualities directly, rather than judging thoughts by subject matter alone.

The Colouring Audit

1. Sit quietly for five minutes and let thoughts arise without redirecting them.
2. For each thought, ask what feeling is fuelling it: fear, pride, longing, aversion, or none of these.
3. If one of those four is present, mark the thought kliṣṭa; if not, mark it akliṣṭa.
4. Notice that some thoughts on serious subjects are still akliṣṭa, and some ordinary ones are kliṣṭa.
5. Close by naming which affliction, if any, colours today's dominant kliṣṭa thought.

Extending the Practice Over Weeks

6. At the end of each week, review which situations most often produced kliṣṭa fluctuations.
7. Connect that pattern to a specific kleśa, such as fear of loss or wounded self-regard.
8. Choose one recurring akliṣṭa thought, such as gratitude toward a teacher, and extend its duration deliberately.
9. Track whether kliṣṭa episodes shorten across a month of this practice.

Confusing Emotional Intensity With Kliṣṭa Status

A loud emotional reaction is often assumed to be kliṣṭa simply because it feels intense, but Vyāsa's account asks what the fluctuation is rooted in, not how forceful it appears. Grief over a genuine loss can remain largely akliṣṭa if it is not compounded by denial or aversion, while a quiet, socially acceptable thought can still be kliṣṭa if it silently feeds asmitā. Judging only by outward calm risks mistaking suppressed affliction for the clarity this sutra actually describes.

Treating the Categories as Fixed Labels for Situations

Another error is assigning a permanent kliṣṭa or akliṣṭa label to a whole category of situation, such as deciding that all thoughts about money are kliṣṭa. The sutra's logic is about the underlying colouring of a given moment's thought, not about subject matter, so the same topic can appear in either form depending on what is fuelling it at that particular time.