The journey through my bodies comes to an end!   This exploration reinforced to me, yet again, the multidimensional potential of yoga practice.  The yoga community in the West spends a great deal of time milling about in the physical realm of the annamaya kosha.  In itself, of course, coming to know one's physical self is a fruitful activity and can lead to many benefits.  The unfortunate result of focussing only on one kosha is that yoga, then, can become simply another extension of a vanity obsessed, consumer culture.  

The over-valuation or over-emphasis of any one kosha leads to an unbalanced, sometimes extremist perspective on the practice.  In contrast to the physical obsessions of the West we've also heard the stories of the incredible feats achieved by yogi's dwelling in the transcendent realms of energy and awareness.  In some traditions these magical abilities become obsessions in their own right leading only to a different kind of vanity seen as righteousness - but, in the end it is vanity nonetheless.  

A practice that deeply respects the complementarity of the koshas and the importance of integrating each of them leads to greater balance.  Exploring the shit and pleasure of the physical realm grounds the potential for a deep denial of our humanity when only the koshas of mind and bliss are explored.  On the other hand, keeping mindful of our energetic and spiritual nature reminds the yoga butt obsessions within us (and they are within all of us to some degree!) that there is something more to our existence than achieving physical perfection. 

A deep honouring of each of our bodies helps us to realize our fundamental wholeness, or Pure Being.  This last "non-sheath" is what is revealed as we hold the totality of our human/divine nature.  This human/divine nature is expressed through all of the koshas.  What would it look like in your own practice to honour each of your bodies?  What would it look like to remind ourselves of the multidimensional reality that we are the next time we think we know which approach to yoga is the right one? 

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 In my last post I explored the sheath of Joy.  At this level of awareness seeking ceases.  We come to realize that the Joy that we spend so much energy on trying to attain is closer to us than any possession or achievement could ever be.   Thank god this Bliss of living is not an attainment, it cannot be bought or sold, given or taken away.  It is part of the fabric of what we are, although often forgotten.  As we become still the body of Joy is revealed; remembered.  The Joy that we long for is present and contentment arises.  If only for a moment.  In the lucidity of this contentment there is spaciousness, the mind rests in this Joy and it's relentless hobby of rejecting or grasping experiences pauses. 

When stillness reigns there is nothing left to do, be, or have - and we rest.  From this place of deep rest, this deep Savasana,  something emerges.  Something gets sifted out of this stillness.  The bright light of what is awake in us becomes more and more obvious - we become aware of our own awareness.  We come to recognize that all other levels of our being have been experienced, witnessed by something.  Contemporary philosopher, Ken Wilber puts it this way:  "You are not your thoughts, for you are aware of them.  You are not your feelings for you are aware of them.  You are not any objects that you can see , for you are aware of them too....What is it in you that is always awake?"  Who are you?  What is this you that you call yourself?  What is it that is aware of all of the levels of your being?  This is not the little I that is attached to a personal identity; you know, the part that loves ice cream and romantic comedies, for those procivlities can be witnessed by something much closer.   In yoga or meditation we are often asked to watch our thoughts, to gain some distance from them, some perspective.  This is a wonderful practice, but it doesn't end there.  What happens when we watch the watcher?   This creates a profound paradox in our being that the small mind cannot grasp and words cannot describe fully.  The spontaneous shift to becoming aware of awareness collapses our cognitive assumptions about reality.  This is a cataclysmic disruption of how we have traditionally assumed the world to be - we become both the observer and the observed.  We no longer exist in the realm of either/or; black vs white, instead, we are both.  Our inherent wholeness becomes obvious and the struggle back and forth between good and evil, darkness and light ceases.  Tensions relax and we become the Everything that we have always been..... 

Have you journeyed into the question "Who Am I?"?  Please let Falling Open be a forum for sharing your journey with others so that we may know our Selves together...

Join me in my next post as we explore the final 'non-sheath" of Pure Being.  I will conclude this series with a post on the implications of working with the koshas as a teacher or practitioner. 

In my last post I concluded by saying that I may not be able to experience life's ultimate Truth but I can experience it's ultimate Joy.  After recognizing the limitations of the intellect there is a natural letting go that happens.  For me, by becoming intimately aware of my koshas I come to see the transient nature of all experiences.  There is no foothold on which I can place my security; there is no constant state of pleasure without pain, no ultimate Truth, no state free of the potential for suffering.  When I am reminded of the natural flow of things I fall into a state of Grace where every cell within me celebrates the Life that flows through it.  Good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, righteous or not.  In these moments Bliss rises out of nowhere and the radiant Life that I am basks in it's own brilliance.  This is not Bliss that is dependent on things going my way.  It is Life loving Itself; celebrating Itself; shouting to the entire universe a resounding, Yes! 

For some reason I have always been conscious of this level of my Being without much effort.   Despite the trials of my life, I have always been fortunate enough to hear the faint echo of this sheath affirming life's abundant mystery.  Even in times of deep pain I recall feeling a profound awe about the depth of my own despair.  There was always something present in even the worst of times that called me to recognize the Bliss of living.  Joy is our birthright, says Richard Miller, it is always already there.   How could this not be the case?  Can you imagine an atom that does not have a passion for it's existence?  Can you feel, today, beyond transient emotions and limiting thoughts into your very cells where Joy of Being simply is?    Perhaps you feel it as you read this; perhaps you need to find a still moment in the rush of your day to travel through the grosser levels of your being until you become halted by a wall of Life impassioned by it's own existence.   Whatever the case, please take my word for it that somewhere, regardless of the stress and trials you find yourself in, something within has it's arms wide open and is dancing to both the chaotic and fluid rhythms of your life.   With every one of your tears and every burst of your laughter it becomes wild with ecstasy.  This is Body of Joy; unremitting and ever-present.  It is not a object that exists out there that can be bought or sold, found or lost, but is part of the very fabric of who you are. 

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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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!