Layers Of Our Being: Exploring The Five Koshas

In this guided meditative practice, we explore the layers of our mindbody, our Being, starting from the most manifest or solid, the physical body or Annamaya Kosha. The Pranamaya Kosha works with breath in our body as well our energy field. We move from the Manomaya Kosha, the lower level of the mind of regular thoughts, into the Vijnanamaya Kosha, the layer of wisdom and intuition which is less brain based and involves our heart. The most subtle layer that covers the light of our Being, is the Anandamaya Kosha, the layer of bliss and pleasure. We rest in the center in stillness.

Transcript

The five koshas are the layers or sheaths that yoga describes.

The first one is anamaya kosha,

The physical body.

And that's why we always start there.

So on the five koshas we go from the most solid or most manifest to the most subtle.

And the most subtle is,

If you were to imagine a bright light and then the layers of like scarves covering that light.

The physical body is a solid layer.

Anamaya kosha is the body made of food.

That's our bones and muscles and all of our organs,

That kind of thing.

So when we're really absorbed in our body made of food,

We might kind of forget that we have other layers as well.

It's always good to get established in the most solid first and then we move into the more subtle.

So let's notice our physical body first.

What comes into your attention as you bring your awareness to your physical body?

Notice there are muscles,

There are sensory perceptions,

Senses,

The hearing.

If you have your eyes open for a moment to look around what you bring in through your eyes,

Sight.

Also what we can feel,

Touch.

You're going to rub your hands on your body or on your clothes,

There's that sense of touch and yeah,

This is a solid thing here.

Even though quantum physics tells us we're almost all empty space but our bodies are experienced as solid.

And notice if you could allow yourself to be a little bit more comfortable and also aware that you're being supported.

We become aware that we're supported,

We notice perhaps the heaviness of our body but also perhaps the solid support under our body.

If you're sitting in a chair or laying on the floor or maybe you're outside,

You can feel the earth under your feet.

So where are you in relation to the solidness of the support of the earth?

And we don't have to be right on the earth although it's lovely to do that.

Also gravity supports our body to stay on the earth.

We might have some sensations of pain or discomfort somewhere in our body.

That usually gets our attention.

We probably also have areas of our body that are neutral or perhaps pleasurable when we bring our attention to those.

We're getting now into the prana maya kosha,

The layer of energy and breath.

Prana meaning light energy or light force.

If we work with the breath first,

It's a little bit more connected to the physical body than the energy field that we can become aware of in this kosha,

This layer.

Let's just notice as we're walking into this awareness of our physical body and then we become aware of how our body is moving as we breathe.

When we're breathing diaphragmatically,

Our stomach area softens back towards the spine as we finish our exhale.

And there's an expansion as we breathe in.

There's very little movement in the chest.

It's mostly in the lower rib cage where the diaphragm muscle is.

The movement of our body is being generated by our breath.

We move seamlessly from one layer or sheath into the next.

Sometimes,

Often in these practices,

We do more of a prana layer practice,

An energy layer practice.

If you were to bring your attention to your eyebrow center,

For instance,

Just in front of the eyebrow center,

There's the forehead and the muscles of the forehead and eyes.

We might soften those muscles and then we bring ourselves to the prana layer,

The energy of the eyebrow center,

And we might breathe in and out as though we're breathing out through the eyebrow center.

Clearly,

This is not just physical body anymore.

Focus there for a moment.

It might be really easy for you.

It might be a little bit more difficult.

Just bring your attention to that Just bring your attention to that energy field,

The energy center,

The chakra just behind the forehead,

The ajna chakra.

And being aware also of the rhythm of your breath,

Breathe into the eyebrow center and out of the eyebrow center.

Let yourself be aware of the pranamaya kosha in the eyebrow center.

And as we're paying attention to the practice or the experience of breathing in and out through the eyebrow center,

Which is a non-physical,

It's an energy practice,

We might also notice that there are thoughts in the mind.

The third layer or kosha is the manomaya kosha,

A layer of the lower level of the mind.

And here we're getting into a little bit more physical action.

And here we're getting into a little bit more physical again,

The matter in the brain,

The tissues of the brain,

How much oxygen is in the brain affects our thoughts.

And we're also getting into something that's both physical and energy,

Which is our nervous system.

Our nervous system generates many of the thoughts that are in our mind.

And when we're overly absorbed in the lower level of the mind,

We don't have access to the deeper layers,

The vijnanamaya kosha,

The layer of intuition and wisdom.

And now we're getting more subtle,

Closer to the source of the light.

Let's work with the thoughts in the mind from this perspective for a moment.

We have the physical matter in the brain,

We have energy,

Sometimes our brain feels quite lethargic,

Sometimes very jittery.

We have thoughts in the lower level of the mind.

So we're moving from the brain into the mind,

Awareness of the mind.

And this is the layer that we can witness sounds,

Images,

Video clips,

Memories.

This is where we ruminate about something that's happened in the past.

That can be quite casual and low level,

Or it can be quite compulsive.

We've been working with shame and that lends a lot of intensity.

If there's any shame,

We get quite compulsive.

Notice the energy of your mind.

Is it quite focused and still and kind of practical?

I need to do that thing later.

I'm hoping it's warm enough for a swim later.

And if there are nervous system generated thoughts,

It's really helpful to anchor back into the body and the breath,

So that our nervous system starts to settle and comes down off of the hypervigilance.

And we tend to have some theme songs going on in our brain.

And then if we slip a little deeper into the Vijnanamaya Kosha,

The layer of wisdom and bliss,

It's not as centered in our head anymore.

This is where we might come into awareness of our heart,

Our gut,

Our whole mind-body wisdom.

This is the layer that knows.

We've all had the experience of trying to make a decision and the brain is telling us one thing.

Weighing the pros and cons,

Very much influenced by the nervous system,

Any hypervigilance that might be going on there.

We might come into the heart.

We just have a more generalized,

Not in the head,

But in the whole body.

And for this kind of knowing,

We're not trying to figure anything out,

We're listening.

I would like to know what to do in this situation.

What is my wisdom,

My intuition about that?

And our body speaks to us in sensations and energy.

Can you imagine walking into that meeting and you immediately get a heavy feeling in your chest or your shoulders kind of slump,

And you know that there's something that maybe you could look into a little bit more around that.

And it's not to say we always have to avoid it.

It's just to listen to the messages from our body,

A lot of which are generated by the nervous system.

We know the nervous system has a negativity bias and it bases a lot of its assessment of what to do and if it's safe or not from our childhood and from earlier in our life when we didn't have as much agency.

We don't always want to just go with our gut instinct or sensations and energy moving in the body.

And we don't want to ignore that layer either.

That's one of the main ways that our body communicates with us is the energy in our body.

And another way is through thoughts.

Can I trust that person?

Whatever your question is that you're wanting to get a more full answer,

Sensations and energy in our body will tell us something.

Often images will come up,

Might be reminders of something that person said that made you uncomfortable,

Might be reminders of something that happened 50 years ago that the brain and the nervous system think are related enough that they want to alert you to it again.

And then we have this layer of wisdom and intuition that can assess all of the information that's coming in.

The shoulders that suddenly got tight or maybe the big outbreath of relief.

What do we know?

And what do we know about larger questions as well?

Who am I?

Turning our awareness towards our being,

The lower level of the mind might try to help there.

Well,

I know that our being is stillness,

Our being is whatever we've read about it or experienced.

We have ideas about that.

We might bring into our awareness something like who was looking out of your eyes when you were six years old and 20 years old and now there's a consistent beingness there.

We're more than our experiences,

We're more than our thoughts.

What is your sense of continuity there,

Your being throughout your life?

And we're still a little bit in the mundane or material world,

Personal,

It's through our own body,

Our own eyes.

And then we can let go of all of those ideas and experiences and we move into the Ananda Mayakosha,

The layer of bliss and pleasure.

And this is the lightest,

Most subtle layer that surrounds the light of our being,

The light of consciousness.

This is not a layer that has any worries or concerns or physical sensations.

See if you could let the lower layers or the more solid layers move to the background.

Rest your awareness in the Ananda Mayakosha,

The layer of light,

Of bliss,

An awareness of our being,

Our consciousness,

Resting directly in the center.

Notice that awareness moves easily amongst the five koshas.

We might hear something or we have a thought come through the mind,

An intuition maybe.

We might have memories of times when we felt really close to the center of consciousness and maybe it was an experience of looking at light on the water.

So we're bringing in many of the layers and we can continue to focus on the inside,

The layer of pleasure,

Ananda Mayakosha,

And then resting directly in the center,

The light at the center of our being.

No thoughts,

No awareness of body and breath.

We're not limited to a being of consciousness.

We are in a mind-body.

It's natural that thoughts might come in or something might bring our awareness to some of the other layers.

That's part of what it is to be in a mind-body.

Light at the center of our being,

The light of consciousness,

Is also always here.

We could allow that light to permeate all of the layers,

Our mind,

Our brain,

Our breath,

Our body.

Notice what brings your awareness away from your being and then let that move to the background and bring your attention back into your consciousness,

The light at the center.

The mundane will still be there when we come out of the practice and we can come out of the practice keeping some awareness of being.

We gradually bring in again awareness of the layer of bliss,

Our intuition and knowing,

Thoughts,

Energy and sensations,

Coming back to the eyebrow center,

Breathing in and out through the eyebrow center,

Our physical body's breath.

The movement of our body with our breath.

And then into the Anamaya Kosha,

The body made of food,

Our muscles,

Our joints,

Our tissues,

Allowing the light of consciousness to permeate all of the layers of our being.

Just like as we're moving through the day,

We might recall something that happened before or our mind brings forward something we need to do later,

We might also just bring back this memory of this experience and let ourselves rest here for a moment.

Integrated through our whole mind-body.

Bring some movement to your toes,

Your fingers,

Open your eyes,

Look around.

I hope that you enjoyed that and I'm sure it wasn't 100% focused for anybody.

Hopefully there was also moments when you went right deeply into that stillness,

That knowing.

Reviews

Thank you so much, this meditation was informative but also deeply experiential. 🙏🙏

Very nice! A gentle journey of exploration whereby each layer has it's own function..