At this level of my being I tap into the stories, concepts, images and thoughts that whir about within me.  As I self-reflect I notice some anxiety (at the level of the manomaya kosha) about finishing this post knowing that I have little time in the next few days to do so.  At a subtler level there is a belief that drives the anxiety.  The belief is that if I don't get it finished and readers are expecting a post that I will have failed in some way.   As I try to stay with this belief it gets bumped out by random images of the potato soup I am cooking upstairs and a curiousity about where my cat is after being MIA for a few hours.   The fodder and filler of this sheath flies in and out of awareness from moment to moment.  As I rest in the awareness of the fleeting nature of thoughts and images.  I am reassured that the belief that I will be a failure for not completing this post soon is not substantial;  It is not a Truth sent forward to me from the cosmos.  Rather, it is a random spark of energy rising in my consciousness. The non-dual tradition is particularly clear about this.  Thoughts rise out of silence and fall back into silence.  They are birthed out of the Great Mystery, live their life cycle and die. (Just follow a thought back to it's Source to see what I mean).  But, sometimes the ego doesn't let thoughts come and go.  Like the emotions and feelings of the emotional sheath, ego tends to make beliefs into something they're not.  It makes them into Truth's.  They become reified iron cages; prisons that within which we operate, half alive and in constant fear that we may somehow violate this "Truth".   The non-dual tradition invites to into a state of listening and it is here that we begin to see the fleeting nature of the content of our mental sheath, and the egoic function of the mind that tries to interrupt this natural flow.  

I have spent many years exploring, understanding and cultivating stories about myself and reality.   It has been an exquisite journey and an incredibly important one.   It is important in that the more I have explored the more I have realized that there is no end to it.  I will not find ultimate truth. I will not find that substance of Rightness which I can claim as my own; giving me a foothold in reality and superiority over my fellows.  Like Socrates' ultimate conclusion; we will never really know the ultimate truth of things .  So the mental sheath is starting to take on a different role in my life now.  It used to be that the content of this sheath was of utmost importance.  Now, more and more I simply spend time with this sheath, becoming aware of how it operates, letting it flow (in those rare lucid moments), watching it's amazing mosaic come alive and die from moment to moment.  It has become a practice for me to bring awareness to the way that my ego tries to inflate the movements of my mind into gargantuan, holy Truth's so that I can remember to breathe space into disagreements and soften my criticisms.  It's a work in progress, like everything.  But as I find myself softening my death grip on the stories and beliefs of this sheath I begin to settle into life's flow a bit more.  Maybe I don't know the ultimate Truth of Life, but I can experience it's ultimate Joy.   

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I've been actively avoiding this post all week. I have often guarded my feelings and emotions and so publicly writing about it fills me with fear.  I'm afraid to be honest, I'm afraid that I won't be honest.  So I start there.  In the fear.  I move through the first two sheaths with ease, I am comfortable here, in sensation and energy.  And then I bump up against a wall of butterflies- this is often how I feel fear or anxiety - as mass of butterflies that jitter in my torso.  And the butterflies go nowhere.  They just flit about in chaotic non-patterns, bunging up any sense of flow within me.

I bring more awareness to this moving, immovable mass.  As I do this the butterflies seem to disperse slightly.  Others begin to slow their flight.  They know there being watched.  The gaze of my awareness illuminates their flight and they feel recognized; known.   I feel the butterflies and nothing happens, I don't die, or self destruct or become a terrible person.  Instead I become aware of the way that the anxiety has been exaggerated by my avoidance of it.  As I feel and a write there is a calm that fills me the way it does when I am on my mat.  I've recognized my avoidance and fear and that has set me free.  In this moment, through the veil of the butterflies that have begun to tire I notice other things happening in the manomaya kosha.  A feeling of relief is present.  There is excitement to carry on the activities of my day.  I feel a flash of happiness and contentment because I have found words to express myself.  There is some irritation present as I recognize hunger and must attend to it.  I have feelings of coolness on my shoulders and warmth in my low back.  My head feels heavy as it falls forward toward my laptop, but I my brow feels light as it's furrow releases.   

The manomaya kosha, like the others I have already discussed, is a living, dynamic sheath.  It is the realm of feelings, the subtle sensations, and the realm of emotion (*).  Life rises and falls, births and dies, within it from moment to moment.  Just when I thought that the butterflies within had taken up permanent residency (which is a tendency of the egoic mind - to make something a permanent, nonchanging object) they begin to vanish.  I feel awe at this process.  I truly feel a spaciousness now, my breath is fuller, softer.  The anger that was present for not being able to "control" the butterflies has dissipated.  The egoic hold that had reified my fear (made it into an object) has lost its grip and I am able to feel the flow of life once again.  Until.  Until the egoic movement of my mind attempts to hold onto what it deems positive or fight against what it sees as negative.  But in that moment I have my yoga practice and in this moment I simply rest. 

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(*) Footnote - More clarification on the nature of feelings in this kosha.  Feelings are of a similar nature but distinct from emotion.  In the first sheath we were experiencing the gross sensations of the body.  In this sheath we are aware of the subtle sensations, or feelings, such as heaviness or lightness, cold or hot etc.  These are more refined or particular experiences of sensation.

As I sit in front of the large windows in my living room I notice a lady bug crawling along the windowsill.  It is only one small part of the larger scene of life pulsating through this moment.  My cat snores beneath my chair.  A light breeze ruffles the delicate leaves of freshly planted petunias on my porch.  The heavy, grumbling sounds of passing cars periodically mask the fervent chirps of neighborhood robins.  The world is vital this morning.  It is not a blob of inanimate substance, it is alive.  I am alive.  My awareness turns inward and I notice that my body feels fatigued from hours of excited gardening.  My legs ache and my eyelids feel heavy and yet, there is something else there.  Despite my overworked muscles and slightly sore low back there is a vitality present within me.  It has been nurtured by days spent digging in the rich soil beneath the oceanic skies of the Alberta prairies.  

This is prana and I allow myself to sense it more fully by dropping into my breath.  My breath flows easily right now.  I am stress free and more than willing to take in the circumstances of this moment.  Oxygen circulates through my blood and I feel my active hands reaping the benefit of this amazing flow.    As I sense through the gateway of the gross sensations of my body I notice that more than just my breath flows.  There is subtle sensation, miniature shock waves of aliveness that also flows through me.  I feel a twitch in my right foot, a tingle in my sacrum.  My emotions oscillate between contentment and eagerness to get back outside amongst my flowers.  My awareness flows from presence to distraction and back again.  The existence of the sensation, emotion and thought are the substances of other koshas but the movements within them is the influence of the pranamaya kosha.  Dr. David Frawley, doctor of Ayurvedic medicine (yoga's sister science), describes 5 movements of prana in our body which I summarize here:

1.  Movement from the head to the navel
2.  Movement from the navel through tailbone and legs
3.  Movement from the periphery of the body to the navel
4.  Movement from the navel to the periphery of the body
5.  Movement from the navel to the head

My yoga practice today takes me into a kinesthetic understanding of these movements.  As I hug my knees into my chest I feel slight pressure moving from my belly to my sitting bones.  I am experiencing the impulse of energy that helps us with excretion.  Holding the knees into the chest will help eliminate constipation much like pumping babies legs helps to expel gas. 

In trikonasana I engage my core body, the space just below the navel, and extend through my limbs.  My energy is awakened at my center and propelled to the periphery.  I become aware of my breath, it is steady.   My blood becomes oxygenated or empregnated with prana and the asana spreads it through my system.  Awareness lets me know where prana is blocked.  This isn't a magical process.  I know where prana is lacking because these areas of my body feel stagnant, like cardboard, but I simply remain present.  Daniel Odier, Tantric teacher says in his book Desire:  
"We never try to change or adopt a new way of behaving; instead we try only to allow our awareness to descend toward what is really happening within us. We will notice that this presence is sufficient for putting an end to whatever is blocking the flow of life."


As I rest in the oscillations and flows of my body in asana I feel expanded.  I feel larger than the boundaries of my physical body.  Residing in the energy body allows us to feel ourselves beyond the idea that we are solid, separate lumps of clay.  Non-dual teacher Jean Klein says that "global feeling goes beyond the physical shape of the body... in expansion there is no isolation. It is love."  (Who Am I?)

My yoga practice has transformed a great deal since awakening to the pranamaya kosha more fully.  It has become more effortless and dynamic.  At some point within it I come to a point of being moved by the natural pranic winds within.  Then, from time to time, the one doing the asana disappears and what is left is an elemental flow of life. 

In yoga we are seen as being made up of various sheaths through which passing phenomena arise and dissolve.  These sheaths or bodies are called koshas in Sanskrit.  In the non-dual tradition there are 6 koshas and one changless Ground of Being which is both distinct but not separate from the 6 koshas.  In the next few blogs I will be exploring these sheaths through my own experience and sharing what I find with all of you.  Richard Miller, a modern teacher of non-dualism, has delineated the koshas in the following way in his book Yoga Nidra:

1.  Physical body (Annamaya kosha) - Awareness of sensation
2.  Energy body (Pranamaya kosha) - Awareness of breath and energy
3.  Emotional body (Manomaya kosha)  - Awareness of feelings and emotions
4.  Body of Intellect (Vijnanamaya kosha) - Awareness of thoughts, beliefs and images
5.  Body of Joy (Anandamaya kosha) -  Awareness of desire, pleasure and joy
6.  Body of Ego-I (Asmitamaya kosha) - Awareness of the witness of ego-I
7.  Natural State  (sahaj) - Awareness of changeless Being.

Sitting on my couch with my laptop resting on crossed legs I begin to sense annamaya kosha.  This is what some authors call the food body - the kosha that is influenced at a gross level by food and other aspects of our environment.  It is through this kosha that we engage the world around us through our senses.  It is the level of muscle, bone, organ and tissue.  I become aware of sensation in my face.  There is strain around my eyes and the tip of my nose is cold.  I notice my jaw slightly tense and my neck expresses the complementarity of tension in the back and space in the front.  My chest feels open and soft and my shoulders shrug a little to help my hands align with my keyboard.  The staccato movements of my fingers make the tips tingle with sensation and I feel slight fatigue in my wrists.  There is softness in my solarplexus and heat along my spine.  The faint ache of my low back and right hip evokes emotion - but that is a different blog.  The pressure on my bottom foot under crossed legs is evident.  I sense my organs and indigestion becomes obvious, cereal and almond milk resting heavy in my irritable belly.  I jiggle slightly with the beat of my heart and as my lungs gently heave I am taken momentarily into intimacy with these life giving balloons in my torso.  I am aware of the other organs in my body, but do not sense their quality.  They present themselves to me at a sublter more energetic level.  I feel my attention sweep back to the grosser level and notice the sound of my baby waking through the monitor beside me.  The bright light of mid morning fills my eyes.  The lingering blend of licorice mint tea coats my palate. I smell almost nothing, just the faint scent of home that has become taken for granted but deeply appreciated in this lucid moment of awareness.  I notice that I cannot help but begin to feel swept into the next kosha of the breath and energy.  There is a force that wants to take us into fuller and more complete experiences of our selves and life.  There is nothing I need to do but become aware, open and willing.  Unlike the dualistic yoga philosophies based in Samkhya there is nothing I need to cultivate at this level, I need only show up.  I feel the stickyness of holding one position for too long and my heart beats a little faster as I hear my child ready to carry on with the rest of her day.  I look forward to taking my awareness of this physical kosha outside where the sun greets budding trees and bedding plants eager to grow their glory.   This kosha bears with it the pleasure and pain of living, the fatigue of motherhood and the freshness of my child's smile.  It is wonderful in its own right and also acts as a gateway to the subtler aspects of our being.  Please, tell me of your journey through this body and let us share in it's wonder together! 

My daughter, Rowan, is a crucible through which the depth of my yoga practice has been tested. She was only home a month when I was besieged by post partum depression, colic and sleeplessness. One desperate day I settled, with feeble energy, into downward dog. I breathed there, listlessly, and felt my exhaustion. I breathed and felt the sensations of pain, fatigue and self doubt live their way through my body. I breathed until I became completely and honestly present to the deep ache of motherhood – the ache of immense fear, anger, fatigue, confusion – and love.

As I descended deeper into experience my awareness held this ache like an old friend it asked me to change nothing. It did not challenge me to open where I had been tense from hours of pacing with my child. It did not push me to stay and build greater strength where I was weak. Daniel Odier, a modern teacher of Tantra, says; “rediscover the peace of the gaze that wants nothing”. The gaze of my awareness wanted nothing that day; it simply held the immensity of my struggle without demand.

And then my baby began to cry. In days past that would have started my heart pounding but this time was different. The awareness that was birthed in on my mat simply grew larger to include her cries within it's Grace. This “gaze that wants nothing” was big enough to hold Rowan too. In that moment I was not afraid of what the next hour would bring, be it painful crying or playful calm. That day I had rediscovered the peace of being aware without demand. And, I came to realize that my baby's sleeplessness, her cries and her smiles were like the sensations and experiences of a downward dog. Not good, not bad, just simply there – the blessed expression of Spirit in it's many forms. From that day forward I met my daughter in a much different way. I no longer felt the same pressure to “fix” her restlessness or control her schedule to suit my ideas about what should be. I no longer took her discomfort personally as if I had failed as a mother because I had not eradicated her pain. In the past I had “perfectly” aligned everything to get her to sleep and eat. But she showed me that, like in asana, there was a natural intelligence that was moving her young evolution forward in it's own way regardless of my effort and ideas.

Now, with every asana, cry and giggle I am reminded of this Will that is far beyond my own and how it attempts to guide me in the soft moments when my ego forgets itself. My child has caused yoga to flood through my life. She is the ease and difficulty of a downward dog, the fire of kapalabhati breath and the soft silence of savasana. She is the flow of life, without apology and before ego takes hold. She is my child and the greatest asana I have ever lived.

Stretching can be the home of the ego. In any asana the sensation of stretch has the ability to usurp the legitimate expression of all other sensations. The stretch becomes the dominant force, the loudest experience. Stretching the muscles makes us feel like we're doing something, achieving something. It can become the embodiment of the “no pain, no gain” attitude that permeates our culture. Without awareness it can become habit to know an asana in terms of stretch to the negation of all other sensation. It starts to feel like we are not doing yoga without the stretch. What would it be like to experience asana from other perspectives? Take downward dog. It is easy to find the stretch here, hamstrings, calves, shoulders. What if we softened a bit by bending the knees and letting the heels rise off the floor? Feeling now the weight distribution between the hands and feet. Then noticing the freedom or constriction in the joints of the elbows and shoulders. The breath moves in patterns of undulation through the tension and softness in your tissues. Can you feel your strength? Are you willing to feel your weakness? Feeling the aliveness in your warm muscles and coming to know the places of stagnation throughout your body you are more than the stretch. You are more than the singular perspective on the moment. This is flexibility – to see the moment from more than one vantage point. To come in to a global awareness of life's rising and falling in your body, in the moment.

Imagine the possibilities of cultivating this ability in your life. Take a conflict with your partner. He's wrong, you're right. What if you softened your position a bit? Feel something other than your “rightness” present. There is emotion. There is the look of pain on his face. There is the flashback of a wrong done to you years ago that has nothing to do with the present moment. Your breath undulates from your fear of being wrong, it undulates from the pain of your aggression. Can you feel your strength and weakness? Can you feel his? Feeling the aliveness of your anger, there is something else there, it is empathy. And you become more than your rightness.

Being more than a singular aspect of your yoga practice, be it the stretch, the burn or the alignment allows us to see the moment from various perspectives. It challenges the ego's tendency to fixate on one aspect of our circumstances in an attempt to appease it's desires or discomforts. And, the greatest fruit of this practice is that it helps us to live with greater compassion. We become able to see circumstances from the vantage point of the other – whether that other is your partner, your child or a perfect stranger.  This week in your practice, as a beginner or seasoned yogi, notice what sensations tend to dominate your awareness - what else is there?  Please let the rest of us know what you've found!