6 min read

May you be happy and peaceful. An Inward Journey Through the 5 Yoga Koshas.

PANCHA KOSHA MEDITATION – 5 KOSHAS MEDITATION.

The koshas serve as a guide for the deeper practices of yoga.

The path of yoga is one of moving our attention and awareness progressively inwards. We live in a very external way, usually with our attention focussed outside ourself; at the things in the world around us; people, places, movement, etc.

Picture for a moment the situation where you find a bruise on your arm and you don’t know how it got there. You must have bumped yourself somewhere, of course, but because our attention is often placed somewhere other than on our body, our movement and what we are doing or thinking, we are often not mindful enough to notice when we walk into something. Yoga and practices such as meditation make it much easier to access this mindfulness.

By moving our attention inwards and moving through each of the 5 koshas, or layers of our being, we are able to explore our human experience and our Self in a much more conscious way.

So what are these Koshas?

The 5 Koshas - or pancha kosha - is an ancient yoga concept. The 5 layers or bodies or sheaths of our being as explained in ancient writings of the Vedas or the Upanishads, are:

1. THE PHYSICAL LAYER – the body – annamayakosha

Literally, the “food body,” it includes all of your muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments. It's the most obvious of the layers and we can feel it.

2. THE ENERGY LAYER – the breath energy - pranamayakosha

According to yogic philosophy, our prana or energy travels through the body through channels called nadi's and moves around on the breath. Though prana is sometimes translated as “breath,” it is not the breath itself. It works with the breath, but it is more subtle than the breath. It’s energy.

3. THE EMOTIONAL LAYER – the mind and feelings - manomayakosha

When we feel that we are carried away by emotions, we are living in this kosha. We might try to avoid dealing with this layer by pushing it down or ignoring it, but our emotions eventually come to the surface.

4. THE WISDOM LAYER – insight or intuition - vijnanamayakosha

Sometimes an unexpected insight arises in your mind or you have some kind of intuition or gut feel, and you might wonder where that came from? That’s your vijnanamaya kosha revealing itself.

5. THE BLISS LAYER – our fundamental core - ananadamayakosha.

In yoga we call it the “bliss body,” and it is the most subtle of the five koshas. It is what we are at our core: peace, joy and happiness.

Sometimes this idea of us being peace, love and joy can be a little puzzling at first - but also a wonderful relief - because many of us may be schooled to believe the doctrine that we are all born into the world with sinful natures, due to the sin of Adam and Eve.

Peace, love and joy is what most of the Eastern philosophers consider to be our true nature, what we are when we are born, and what we are at the core of our Self.

I will be incorporating these 5 koshas into the yoga classes this week and next. But if you're not at yoga this week, you can meditate your way into these 5 layers quite easily by following some simple instructions below.

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You can practice this easily by yourself, if you find a quiet place at home with no pets, children or phone to disturb you. You can sit on the floor or in a chair. You might know some of these words from the yoga class already:)

So, are you ready to begin?

Find your seat. Make your body soft and relaxed. Eyes closed. Soft but upright spine. Place your hands in your lap or on your knees.

We lengthen the body from the tailbone up to the crown of the head, and also lengthen into the sides of the body. You might want to move your hands and elbows to accommodate for that. Sliding your shoulder blades back a little.

We begin with the Anamayakosha – the physical body.

Keep your eyes closed softly throughout. Slowly begin to feel how your body is taking up the space.

Become aware of the weight of your body.

Whatever that is – 40kgs – 70kgs – 150 kgs, whatever.

Place that entire weight on your sitbones.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Notice the mat your are sitting on.

Notice the temperature of the air on skin, clothing on skin.

Feel all the parts of your body- from the crown of your head, feel the skin on your head, feel your forehead, the space in between eyebrows, nose, sense of smell, mouth, sense of taste, ears, sounds, your arms, front of body, belly, back, spine, sit bones, legs, feet, toes.

Connect with all sounds and sensations in your environment – you are in harmony with your environment right this moment.

Sit for 2 or 3 minutes - or as long as you want.

Now we move into the Pranamayakosha.

Connect with your flow of breath. Notice how the breath changes our energy flow in the body: fast breath is fast moving energy, slow breath is slower calm moving energy.

Pay attention to your breath, not changing it in any way at first, as it naturally draws in and leaves the lungs.

Bring awareness to how the body moves as you breathe and any sounds your breath makes you might hear.

Breathe in. As you breath in, your body gets a little bit tense. As you breathe out, the body becomes softer.

With as little force as possible: start evening out breath: Samavritti breath. Count your inhale and count your exhale and make them both the same length.

Breathe in. And slowly breathe out.

As your lungs empty, you get more and more relaxed.

Breath in & fill your lungs with the breath.

And as you breathe out, relax.

Breath is moving in and out of this body, keeping body alive. Grateful for breath.

Sit with this for 2 or 3 minutes - or as long as you want.

Manomayakosha – Become aware of your mind.

This might be a little more difficult. This means you simply observe what you are thinking and feeling.

Allow your mind to be free – if your mind follows a story or thoughts, see if you can let go of attachment and judgment.

Simply observing thoughts as they are, flowing through the mind with freedom, without holding on or pushing away.

Whether good thoughts or bad thoughts, let them be.

Acknowledge everything that comes up.

And in the same way as you acknowledge what comes up, let it go.

Become aware of your feelings, whether pleasant or unpleasant, just let them be.

You are in harmony with your feelings right this moment.

And consider for a moment that you are in fact not your feelings or your thoughts, not your anxiety or happiness or anger— that those are reactions or emotions that merely occur within you.

Sit with this for 2 or 3 minutes - or as long as you want.

Let go of awareness of your mind and move into centre space of your heart. Vijnanamayakosha

As we said before, sometimes an unexpected insight arises in your mind or you have some kind of intuition or gut feel, and you might wonder where that came from? That’s your vijnanamaya kosha revealing itself. That’s our wisdom layer, intuition. Sit with this for 2 or 3 min’s and see if anything comes up. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. It doesn't matter either way. And whatever comes up is fine.

Sit for another 2 or 3 minutes or longer if you want to.

Moving to Anandamayakosha – our bliss body.

To find out what it means to sit in our bliss body, begin to imagine a person who creates happiness or joy for you. Nothing too complicated, because sometimes relationships are complicated. Keep it to something simple. An event or place can also work. A sunset, a walk in nature, etc. Anything that gives you uncomplicated joy.

Imagine this person, place or event.

Remember the feeling of happiness joy. Feel in your heart. Feel it now, let it grow. Until it fills your entire body – and fills every cell, every fibre of your being. With your full attention on this feeling – feel it begin to expand out into the space around you. With a pure connection to this feeling, washing it over everyone, let it fill the room you are in, the building you are in, expanding so far now that it fills the area, the entire planet, the universe… and beyond…

While it is expanding, you can imagine handing out big scoops of this feeling to others. Giving joy and kindness to people you love, people you know well, not so well, and to people you do not know at all.

You will notice that, although you are giving it away, it doesn't become less within yourself. In fact, quite the opposite.

Its about seeing it, feeling it…and enjoying it … that’s anandamayakosha - its sometimes called unconditional love.

Allow it to move back into your heart and live there.