The Layers of Yourself

I have mentioned in the past that Yoga offers us a structure through which to understand ourselves, a system that can support our own exploration and discovery. In fact, when you first encounter all of the information, it can feel overwhelming to know how they relate and which is relevant in any given moment. I find there are a lot of ways to explore Yoga, but I tend to always come back to the model of the Koshas to ground myself and find direction. Maybe we can think of this as the compass to help navigate the explorations.

The Koshas are the layers or sheaths of our being. They are five interconnect layers of human existence. You can think about these as nesting dolls, each layer sitting just inside of the next. They appear outwardly as one thing, but you can peek inside the first layer and you find additional depth that you didn’t know was there.

The five layers are the Annamaya Kosha, Pranamaya Kosha, Manomaya Kosha, Vijnanamaya Kosha, and the Anandamaya Kosha. The most external layer is the Annamaya Kosha, the physical body. We can think of this a skin, muscle, bone, food, the material world we interact with. The next layer in is the Pranamaya Kosha, the breath body or energy body. This is the part that keeps us alive and moving, tapped into the rhythm of breath and life. The third layer is the Manomaya Kosha, which is the mental body. This is where our thoughts and emotions, story-telling lives. Our fourth layer is Vijnanamaya Kosha, our wisdom and intuition. This is where our higher mind lives, where we can leverage discernment and tap into the deep knowing that we hold within us without the over processing and story-telling that we can get caught up in. And finally at the core is the Anandamaya Kosha, the bliss body. This is where we feel connection to the divine. How you navigate here and what this feels like to you, is wholly personal and I imagine unique to each of us.

Using this structure to help support navigating through life starts with getting a sense of which of these layers are available to you. Start by listing out the five Koshas, then ask yourself how connected you feel to that layer. Do you have easy access to this part? Do you spend much time here? Does it feel foreign or far away? Maybe it’s something you haven’t thought much about. All of this information is useful. There is no judgement, just deepening awareness of where you are at.

The next questions are to understand where your struggles and challenges lay. When you think about the whole of your being or maybe it is a more focused challenge, where does this show up for you? Are you caught up in a fight with a loved one? Does that show up for you as frustration or anger? (Maybe you are holding that struggle in the Manomaya Kosha) Or does that fight show up as an unsettled feeling in your heart of a stomach ache? (Maybe you are holding that struggle in the Annamaya Kosha). Identify where you hold your struggles. Consider the possibility that you are effected in multiple layers.

Finally, ask yourself what layer you feel like you have access to for support. Are you able to move your body or change what you are consuming? Or is your anxiety so debilitating that you feel stuck and you only have access to the Pranamaya Kosha to change your breath. Or maybe it is some educational learning that will help you break through using the mental body (Manomaya Kosha).

Use the Koshas to help you navigate your everyday life and give you more insight into the connection you have with each layer. The awareness you gain in how you hold stress and your practiced responses with support you as you dive deeper into yourself.

If you are interesting in going deeper on the Koshas, I offer a Koshas Immersion. Please add yourself to the waitlist to get notified the next time this is offered.