The Five Bodies

Many of us get locked up into the idea that we are practicing our Yoga with just one body.

For some, this is the physical body - you know, yoga, downward dog, plank, all the good stuff.

For others of us, this is the mental body - the "real" yoga, of cultivating the mind.

And for others, this is working with a spiritual body - where both the body and mind are dropped.

Each of these types of individual is doing real yoga, and each gets variable results.  The ones who seem to get the BEST results, though, are the ones who work with all the bodies - even some bodies that may not be familiar.

In the classics of yoga, generally 5 bodies are mentioned.  They are called Koshas which means "sheaths".  They are the physical body, the energy body, the thinking mind/emotions, the deep consciousness, and what is sometimes called the "Bliss body".  These bodies all work together and each one has a yoga that can effect it.

First is the physical body - which is actually called the "food body" in the ancient texts.  This name means, "that which nourishes the body" - food, breath, hope, sleep, subtle energies, etc. - and the solid substance that is made from it.  This body is nourished by doing physical yoga postures, eating well, getting enough sleep, and maybe having a massage on a regular basis.

The next level down is called the energy body or Prana body.  This is the realm in which your acupuncture meridians run carrying Prana or Chi - the subtle energy.  It is this body that gives you a good or bad feeling about a situation or person, gives chills up your spine when you're inspired, and can manifest in such subtle concepts as "groundedness" and the like.  This body is nourished largely by the breathing exercises of yoga, subtle energy techniques like qigong and visualization, and therapies like medical qigong, marma point massage,  or acupuncture.

Next comes the level of thoughts - this means the inner speech of the mind.  Our words and our interpretations of or projections on reality.  This level of the mind is accessed through analytical and contemplative meditations, debate, and svadyaya - the study of self or essence.

The most subtle levels are next, and these may not be familiar to everyone.  The first is called the Vijnana maya kosa - which means something like 'wisdom appearance sheath'.  This is a deeper aspect of the mind - it can be thought of like the unconscious.  In some yoga traditions this refers to your karma.  Here we can think of it like mental habits.  A story about the Dalai Lama says that when asked what it is that reincarnates, he said "your bad habits".  These are the deep unconscious motivators that often propel our actions and thoughts from under the level of awareness.  We can affect this level through things like Karma-yoga, prayer, and purification practices.

Finally comes the deepest level, called the Ananda maya kosha - or the sheath of bliss.  This is the deepest level.  It is, in fact, not really a sheath at all - it's like what you get to at the middle if you peel all the layers off of an onion - nothing.  What's the connection between nothingness and bliss?  Simply this - at your deepest core, you are nothing but pure potential.  That means you could be anything at all - if you had the right causes and conditions assembled.  The sheer fact of this possibility (which is very close at hand if you are in a human body) is something very inspiring and joy producing!  And the path of yoga has as its sole purpose, the creation of the causes of bliss.  The anandamayakosha is affected by practices which attune you to space or emptiness -  like deep, single pointed meditation.

Now that we've seen all the various sheaths, we may notice that our own personal practice leans more heavily on some than on others.  Some of us love to rest in "emptiness", but forget to work on our karma.  Others of us love to work on our physical bodies, but assume that we are not cognitively inclined.

The fact is, though, that you can never just work on one level, because they all ripple through to each other.  Just think about the last time that you had a strong emotion (prana/mind level), you probably felt the ramifications in your physical body (elevated heart rate, tightening or relaxing of the muscles, etc).  What you may not have noticed is that strong emotions also create "karmas" or habit patterns in the deep unconscious mind.  Similarly, not getting enough sleep (physical level) can obstruct the ability to think clearly or handle one's emotions.

The wisdom of the ancient yogis, which is now being confirmed by numerous studies, is this - if you train more than one body at a time, you magnify your benefits on all the bodies.  Things like weight-lifting are being shown to actually make people more able to learn intellectual subjects like mathematics.  Meditation practice lowers your risk for heart-disease.  Learning to process your emotions can get rid of your back pain.  Hatha Yoga helps decrease disturbing emotions like anxiety.

If we want to get the most out of our developmental practices, we should take a look at the bodies that maybe aren't being addressed.  Do you find the time to do your physical yoga work out, but not to learn something new each week?  Try solving some puzzles or taking a community college course and see if your meditation doesn't deepen.

If you've been attempting to change your karma to solve a recurring emotional issue - try teaming that up with learning non-violent communication.  You can even supercharge the whole process by keeping a still, single-pointed mind through both your karma-yoga, and your communication training.

I believe that the ancient yogis never envisioned a true practitioner as someone who was only spiritually developed, or could simply get themselves into strange, contorted postures, but was someone who had integrated the best of each level of being.

What is your highest vision of integration of the five realms of your being?  What would your practice look like?  What might it be to have the "ananda" - bliss - of the deepest layer permeate throughout your life?  What might take place in the 6th, outermost layer of your being - which is the world you inhabit?  Envision it with me, it might just be magical!