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.