The Five Koshas

When you are travelling to a new destination it helps to have directions or a map. The koshas or layers of our existence are one such map. The koshas help us to understand and navigate our inner journey, from the outer periphery of the physical body, we can see touch and feel, towards our core, our self. One can imagine it like circles within circles, or more picturesque like a Russian doll, one inside the other. But these are only helping images, it is of course like neither. We are awareor are we? Of the physical body at least but already then, doubt whether that is all there is, when we use phrases such as : I am lost in thought? I am besides myself. The yogic literature and really any esotheric literature talks of three bodies. Physical, subtle and causal body. Now Yoga science and strangely enough the old Greek philosophers talk of Five bodies, or sheath that are like envelops ; one inside the other. Now that makes only sense if there is something inside the envelop. So the koshas are wrapped around something: wrapped around the center, the essence of our being the Self. If we want to be scientific we could say: there are five different energy fields wrapped around the most subtle core of our existence. They each vibrate at different frequencies. Now where have we heard that before? Yes with the Five Elements; - and so it is said, that we have these five different types of energy fields wrapped around us. Each of them shaped by the vibration and characteristics of one of the Elements; and they interact via the Chakras. So we can relate the Five: Annamaya kosha Earth Element Mulkadhara Chakra Pranamaya Kosha Water Element Swadhisthana Manomayakosha Fire Element Manipura Vijnamaya Kosha Air Element Anahata Anandamaya Kosha Space Element - Vishuddha It says in the Taittiriya Upanishad (2.1): The infinite is Brahman. From it, from this SELF, space came to be; from space the wind; from the wind, fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; from earth, the plants; from plants, the food; and from food , the body of man. This body of man, composed of the essence of food is the physical sheath of the Self. Its like having a different look at anatomy, normally anatomy looks only at the body, the physical, solid, matter aspect but here we can say we look at esotheric anatonmy. When we look at the physical body, and our awareness is there alone, then we only are aware of one fifth of who we are. But that is what normal Yoga-students these days, our normal science and medicine all do. They look at one aspect only. It is quiet surprising, because as I said, the awareness that we consist of several layers, is not unique to Yoga or India, we have it in our own tradition, after all our science is shaped by the Greeks.

Poimandres, the greatest philosopher Egypt produced, who taught and wrote in Greece, for the Greek philosophers, taught: Focus you mind-I- will and here is what you must understand: that within you which sees and hears is divine awareness itself.The highest consciousness inside you is nothing other than the Supreme reality. There is no difference between your innermost being and God. Realize what you really are. Well that sounds to me, like any text from the Upanishads! His, most famous book is called Corpus Hermeticus, has a section called the KEY, in which he describes the Five envelops of consciousness. There we have: Soma- the physical body- annamaya kosha Pneuma- vital force or energy body- pranamaya kosha Psyche- sensory awareness and everyday mind- manamaya kosha Logos- intellect and higher reasoning faculty- vijnamaya kosha Nous- intuitive awareness, mystical consciousness- anandamaya kosha He was referred to after his book often as Hermes (Trigistinus), he also taught (just as a matter of fun): the flesh of animals killed violently shouldnt be eaten, because the shock of killing them, the terror of death remained in the meat and hampers the spiritual growth). It seems there was in the ancient world a lot of common ground between India, Greece and Egypt..but so much got lost and pushed out.of this ancient wisdom. Anyway back to the Koshas.The first Kosha, Annamaya kosha, lets have a cursory look. Its where we start. If we look at a map, its like looking at the sign that says: You are here! We can touch and see this level easily; our physical body! We even know through studies of anatomy of our bones, sinews and muscles. Having practiced Hatha Yoga, we should also be aware of these. And this is the level where most people come in, into to yoga they come to work - for and with, the physical body. Some people emphasis the idea of the food body by describing the physical body as a tube around the digestive tract food goes in at the top and waste comes out at the bottom. As the mouth being the most important opening in the food-body; speech is of equally great interest. So working with the annamaya kosha is becoming aware of right food and right speech. But that is much too simple: Others, like Harish Johari, who take the Yogic point (Sankhya Philosophy) look from the subtle to the gross and thus they talk of the annamaya kosha as the last sheath, the final wrap around consciousness, the brown paper of the parcel! At the core of this physical wrapping - is the cerebrospinal system - that which develops first in a living organism when consciousness reaches the lowest level of matter. The cerebrospinal system is also called the midline and it is from that midline all the rest develops. The organism that develops is nourished by food, but food is really nothing but solar energy stored. Hence one can say: the whole system is a generator of energy (electrical if you want to be more science orientated). Harish Johari says: Inside the big firm we can call our physical body, there are many branches and

sub-offices, but the head-office is in the head, - i.e. the brain-mind. The mind uses the brain as its primary tool, its office. The one who directs the mind is the manager of that office. The brain, the prime tool - uses breath and breath uses nerves, and nerves uses five senses and sense-organs (eyes , ears , nose , tongue and skin) and they work the five major organs (legs, hands, vocal chords anus and genitals. And all of this, still belongs to the physical realm, working together as one physical unit, inside the body operated by the mind and its knower/manager. So what ever the mind wants to express is expressed through these, so one could say, the mental interest, state, condition . determines its physical expression. Sounds very naturalbut what does it mean? It means your posture, your gestures, your facial expressions and contours, your tensions, your illness, your habits, are all an expression of what goes on in the mind, of what the head-office has decided and put out there to the manifest world! Meaning what? Meaning: mental tension for example can be observed at looking at your forehead! How your body moves, is your unique characteristic, it is a response of your mind to your lifes experience. Your posture reflects how you feel inside. Your posture can even become your armor ( Wilhelm Reich) . So by observing where we are tense, what our habits are, how we walk etc. we find out what goes on: right or wrong in the head-office! This we will also see in the state of the other koshas! In Yoga therapy, this is where one starts. In Hatha Yoga practice, this is what we ought to work with. Yoga has traditionally involved the notion that bodily position and physical posture and personal habits and what you might call my ways, are intimately linked to personality and emotion. The asana practice really has only this one reason, to make us aware of our imbalances , our tensions and blockages and then counterbalance those habitual tendencies. For example: a certain habit of walking has brought about the shortening of the Achilles tendon. As a result - we dont put the foot down properly; this weakens the tendon, further, decreases our stability , shortens the involved muscles, saps and limits the energy flowing downwards; disturbs our contact to the earth and the stability and sense of belonging that goes with it. These habits limit the output of that factory which produces electromagnetic energy, which could be used for wellbeing and creative evolution. Hence on this level of the anna-mayakosha cultivating relaxation is very important; to work on a tension free posture is necessary to benefit our mental states (health and happiness, even in the physical realm). Such relaxation and balancing on the physical level, goes hand in hand with awareness or mindfulness training. It is used in therapies throughout, including such therapies as autogenic training, biofeedback, behavior therapy and of course yoga therapy. Furthermore becoming the observer of ones physical body and its expression is a very helpful first tool for the practice of meditation. Hence if Yoga is taught properly, with the right understanding - asanas can open the doors for the practice of meditation. First you learn to observe your outer body in a

detached manner, then awareness can expand to the inner body and the mind; and in deed this progression is vital on the spiritual path. Once the outer physical body is known the practice proceeds to tune in to inner organs. The tragic thing is our culture is not even mainly occupied with the physical body as a whole, but unfortunately with the surface level of even that. We are preoccupied with the surface. If the skin color is poor, we use cosmetics; if body odor is unpleasant- we use deodorants. Self-esteem is more often than not dependent on the outer look; we go to a job interview and how we look might determine whether we get the job. To change this all-important outer - we go to surgery to change our face, breasts, thighs etc.; we inject bo-tox, die our hairetc.etc. But worse still, we feel depressed, unsatisfied, unhappy and our solution is: to resort to shopping, to have new dress, to have a new haircut. Hardly anyone pays attention to the inner world that might be full of derangements, misalignments, imbalances that sooner or later will cause illness and distress and disease. More even: We consider the inside of our body as jak! We dont want to be aware, see or appreciate the inside of our body, which is nothing but blood, lymph and faeces; as the saying goes. But we say it with such negative tones! Yet all these things and their state of health are more important than the Lipstick! And more often than not our insides are polluted, because we dont take care of them we dont think of washing it! We dont fast to clean our stomachs and intestineswell they do it themselves if we give them the opportunity (and react with dis-ease) however we dont encourage the self-cleansing process of the body. There is a natural internal body ecologybut we kill it with antibiotica.. . or suppress its symptoms, with all sorts of potions. If someone has acne or eczema, we try to suppress the external manifestation, but pay no attention to the cause. Someone has a thyroid issue, so we take the thyroid outbut the energies or the conditions that lead to it stay imbalanced and will find a different way to manifest. Why? Because we shun the inside of our body; we dont want to know. It seems that we are and have been as a society convinced for a long time, that disease comes from outside! Until the 1930 people new that this was so, only for a small fraction of diseases. If your body was healthy and strong and well balanced it would fight these, or not even gave them an entrance door! With the pill industry all responsibility was taken from people and their body and the search for miracle drugs that kill the invaderscontinues. Its all due to this thinking that we are the physical body, worse still the surface of the physical body.. In medieval times it was thought our skin is the wall of a castle, the invaders have to be killed! These days this goes so far, that even emotions , such as feelings of unhappiness are glibly blamed on pressure at work, in society in relationships etcthus on external influences. It has nothing to do with me!!! How disempowered can we get!!!! We attempt to cure our issues, by a downer to relax us; or an uplifter to make us feel good rather then working on the issues in our bodies and mind! We can fly to the Moon, we can build the most amazing things but we cant control our own bodieswhy? because we dont know them!

To know and be aware of the states and functioning of our inner bodily circumstances and organs is vital; knowing them and learning how to control them is the real preventative medicine be in body or mind. That is working with and through the annamaya kosha. After all it is common knowledge that most problems have psychosomatic roots . Oh you say: I need a Hip-replacement, my bones are worn out. Fine but if you would have learned to walk properly, used your balance differently and nurtured your body differentlywould you have that condition now? We look at things superficially, remember.and we are not aware of how we move etc If we were, we could change our annamaya kosha( body and mind)in fact : We can! It has been proved and demonstrated many times by such people as Neal Miller/Swami Rama/Krishnamacharia) that internal organs and functions can be volitionally purposefully controlled . Example: heat and cold in One hand.. Cancer created and dissolved Heart stopped . We need to observe ourselves for example: stand in front of the mirror and observe, with detachment, and let that image talk to you. Or: lie silently in Shavasana watch your inner body for tension, for the state of your organs - observe detached.deep down This is the reason for biofeedback. Through it and with it we can learn where our bodys Process are not functioning optimal, because of tension, of blocks, of states of health.. then we can take action to redress. For example: we can change the acid production of our stomach and thus prevent ulcers. There are many such things which to us seem out of reach yogic feats, but there are not, they are simply becoming aware and controlling the annamaya kosha. It has by now even scientifically been shown that kidney function, gastric changes, responses of blood vessels , blood pressure and a host more of conditions, including migraines can be change by will, through intention. But in order to do these things we must first learn to be aware of our inner body and its function and be aware of how these inner states are reflected. As I have said in other contexts: there are no miracles! The great Yogic feats are reachable for every one, we just have to train ourselves. We must learn about the annamaya kosha, and that not only on the outer manifest level, but on the inner levels and here is the problem: We must extend our awareness to see not one organ or misbehavior but its interconnectedness. If we isolate a phenomena it might detrimentally effect other phenomena. We must be free, willing and able to grow in all aspectsthus not only on the level of the annamaya kosha but seeing it as an integral part of the Five koshas we must therefore work on all parts of ourselves - otherwise, we simply continue to perpetuate the same mistakeas working on the outsidethe most superficial level of what is Me.

We must not forget, that the annamaya kosha is simply the lowest, easiest to reach wrapper of five layers, wrapped around the Self, that you are. We mustnt get lost at the entrance door.