Recently in class we have come across the sutra “The 5th obstacle is laziness.” Some students have been asking what & how many obstacles are there? There are nine:
Illness
Apathy
Doubt
Carelessness
Laziness
Craving
Mistaken view of the world left uncorrected
Failing to reach specific levels
Not being firmly established in effort
Filed under: Education
The Yoga Path • Omaha, NE 
Just to clarify. These obstacles are from the first chapter of Patanjali’s yoga sutras. So these 9 are impediments to your endeavor to be still or quiet. It refers back to the second sutra which has been translated to says: “Yoga is learning to stop how the mind turns things around.”