Edward’s Diary Entry 109: The 5 “bodies”, according to the yogis.

There are five “bodies”, referred to as bodies or sheaths, although three are physical, one transitional and the last non-physical.

The “physical”:

1. annamaya kosha, or the food body, so-called because it is just the accumulation of the food we have eaten. This body is, as we know, produced by reproduction of the species, is born, grows, deteriorates and eventually dies and is taken back into the planet, where it came from. It is represented by the element of Earth, and consecrated clay called bhumi is the earth-substance used in certain spiritual practises. The planet and our bodies are about 72% Water, so this element is also part of the physical body.

2. manomaya kosha, or the mental body, so-called because it is just the accumulation of impressions we have taken in. This highly receptive force-field gathers impressions from the 5 physical sense organs, interprets them, stores memories, and produces reactions (thoughts, emotions, ideas, imagination…). It is generally conditioned and lives in disarray, disharmony, enjoying little or no control from any higher faculty. What happens to this at the death of the physical body, we do not know. But we can conjecture that it eventually disintegrates and is non-individually recycled, as it has no consistency or substance of its own. Air is the element that is connected with the mental body, and this is why breathing exercises are important for the control of the mind.

3. pranamaya kosha, or energy body, the body that fuels the mental and food bodies, inferred as the source of their power. This is the body on which yogic practises are focused – as the correct alignment of the energy body is said to bring health and well-being, the natural state of man. Fire is the element related to the energy body. In our normal conditioned state, we do not normally have any direct awareness of this body.

The “transitional” (neither physical nor beyond):

4. vignanamaya kosha, or the etheric body. In our normal conditioned state, we do not normally have any direct awareness of this body, either. As a point of interest, according to Sadhguru, this is the body that can, if great mastery and intensity have been attained within oneself, be let loose and allowed to travel, as in so-called “astral travel”, with the clarification that most talk of astral travel today is simply imagination. Akash (Sanskrit: “sky”) is the element related to this body, rendered as “space”, ie, all that which holds us and everything in the world in place. It is universal and can also be called Akashic intelligence, not to be confused with its adoption in Western occultism and spiritualism in the late 19th century, which is just gobbledygook.

The “non-physical”:

5. anandamaya kosha, or the bliss body. We know nothing of this in any conditioned state of the mind. It may be Grace. It is that which is not, or “Shi-va” (no-thing).

So, “Self-Awareness”, or “I” can be partially conscious of some things happening in the Food Body – hunger, thirst, pain, relaxation, in calm meditation perhaps my heart beating and air coming in and out. But most of the time, we do not know what to do with our Food Bodies – not even the kind of food, drink, exercise and treatment it really requires to function properly. There is a lot to be learned and done in this respect.

Our “Self-Awareness”, or “I” can also be partially conscious of things happening in the Mental Body – as when we realise we have a thought, an emotion, an idea that pops up, a memory that is stirred up. But here the situation is even worse – we have too many ideas and concepts about what to do with the Food and Mental Body, and the Mental Body is simply accepted as “me”, when it is really just an accumulation of “them” and “society” if no rigorous self-questioning has led to a modicum of self-knowledge and understanding.

From here on, we have no clear idea of anything above these two, unless we have gone very, very deeply into our inner world. So there is a long way to go, my friend.

I have been studying this structure and will soon compare it with my original diagram of Self-Awareness and how it relates to the mind, in a forthcoming Diary Entry. Stay with me.