For Yoga Teachers

59. Understanding the koshas

• Yoga Hero • Episode 59

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Understanding the koshas can be totally transformative to your yoga teaching.

If you've been put off the koshas before, concerned that they don't really make sense, or they don't really offer anything concrete to actually work with... this episode is for you!

Expect to understand a) what the koshas are and b) how they can help you, as a person and as a yoga teacher.

Enjoy!

See the shownotes here

Oh and by the way, if you liked this, you'll LOVE our Myofascial Release, Energetic Anatomy and Yin Yoga training, in March 2025 

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 Hello, and welcome to four yoga teachers. This podcast has been created to help yoga teachers teach with passion, avoid burnout, and earn a fair living. 

Today, we're looking something that on the surface, I think can be complex and not very useful. But when understood through the lens of working on yourself and working with other people can be profoundly helpful. 

And this is the koshas. 

We'll look at, what the koshas are. We'll look at each kosha one by one. And how an understanding of the kosha can help you work on yourself and work with others too. Expect to straightforward episode with not too much Sanskrit. And next week's episode is looking at how you can weave the koshas into your yoga classes to take them up a level. Okay, let's go. 

 

A kosha is a sheath or a body or And there's five of them. 

You might think about starting at annamaya kosha, the food b ody And working your way towards anandamaya kosha. The bliss body. You might imagine Anna Maya kosha, the food buddy as the smallest. And anandamaya kosha, the bliss body, as the biggest. or, you might imagine them the other way around. With Anna Maya kosha, the food body is the biggest, and anandamaya kosha, the bliss body as the smallest. Both makes sense in my head. 

And of course, what we're talking about is The only one that we can see, touch, and feel is the food body. The others; we're trusting, and believing, that they're there. 

The name's really interesting. Like I say, kosha means layer or sheath or body. And in the name of each kosha we also have Maya. The Sanskrit word, meaning illusion. 

Meaning an unreality. And it's referring to what each of us think is this reality that we are all separate. That I'm here in this body. And my name is Holly. And you're there in your yoga teacher, in your, in your body and your different. But of course the yogis know, that we are all consciousness. We are all energy. We are all beams of light. 

So the five layers, the five bodies. are five iterations of this illusion which keeps us separate from the understanding, from the knowing, from the true vision, that we are all consciousness. anna Maya kosha. The food body. 

 Anna maya kosha is the physical body is called the food body because it's the body that food goes into. It's your skin, your bones, your muscles. What is tangible and physical and manifest. 

It's what we move around in yoga asanas. It's what we nourish with food; hence the name, the food body. 

And it can be in perfect working order. Or there can be niggles and injuries and pain. 

Reasons for injury and pain might be something like a pulled muscle. Something that's happened, with one action that was maybe a little bit too much for the person. 

And injuries and niggles and pain, could be a result of a sustained posture over time. Think for example, desk posture In fact, desk posture is an example that I'll use throughout this episode to link together the five So if somebody sat at a desk. Then they might have the head forwards of the body. They might experience the shoulders rounding forwards. Less space for the chest. There might be a lack of strengths in the abdominal muscles. And there might be tension in the hips from sitting down all day. 

Hold all of this in your mind, because this posture is going to be super important to hold as we investigate the other koshas. 

Pranamaya kosha. The energy body. 

Prana of cause being the vital life force. So you can think about the pranamaya kosha. As the breath body, how cool is that? That there is a whole body dedicated to breath. That's how important the breath is. You could think about is the energy body. You could think about it as both. And you would be perfectly correct. 

So let's you is our example of our desk worker to help illuminate the pranamaya kosha. We're visualising a pretty extreme desk body. 

With the head forwards of the spine with the shoulders rounded forwards, we see the elbows bent all the time too. 

So whilst physically in the Anna Maya kosha, the food body, you might think about this desk posture as creating tension in the chest and the front of the shoulders. It may be a kind of sleepiness and unresponsiveness of the muscles of the upper back. I could go on and on, but I'm just going to leave that there. 

In the pranamaya kosha in the energetic body; what this is starting to mean is that our desk worker is probably really struggling to take a deep breath. If you are not a desk worker or you are, but you're pretty happy with your posture. If it's safe for you to sit down for a moment, go ahead and do that and allow the head to come forwards of the spine. Allow the shoulders to round forwards. Allow the spine to round a little and now try and take a deep breath. try and breathe with your diaphragm. It's hard. 

Isn't it? Maybe even kind of impossible. 

So using our desk worker to help understand the five bodies, the physical body is going to have a huge impact on the pranamaya kosha on the energetic body, the breath body. 

We're going to struggle to get a breath if the annamaya kosha, the food body is not in a decent position ready for us to breath with the diaphragm. 

And then this has an impact on how we feel as well. Doesn't it? This makes us feel fatigued. Doesn't it. It makes us feel tired. And maybe a bit down in the dumps as well. So see how we're starting to link together what the physical body is doing with the energetic body; the breath body. 

And you can look at this the other way as well. If the breath is short and sharp, that's going to start having an impact on the physical body. You could put your desk worker example to one side for a moment. Allow the breath to speed up a little, breathe into the top of the chest. And then notice the impact that this has on the physical body. Maybe you can feel your heart pumping quicker. Maybe you could feel your temperature rising. And I bet this will start to have an impact, on the next kosha, too. 

 Manomaya kosha. The mental body. 

This kind of stopped me in my tracks when I first learned about this. Up until really learning about the koshas, I'd always thought about the mind and I'd always heard about the mind being in the head. In my head in your head. In a head. 

 Coming across the kosha system was really the first time that I understood, about the body mind. The mind, the mental processes, emotions, memories, the way that we see the world. Can be in the body as much as it is in the head. Manomaya kosha is pretty much the entire content of the mind. The processing. The stories that you tell yourself about yourself, and how you make decisions. 

Coming back to our desk worker with the desk posture. And it's affecting the breath and it's affecting the pranas ability to move around the body and to have the person feeling. Ready. Alert. And also calm. This can impact the manomaya kosha, the mental body. By showing up repeated beliefs, repeated processes. Thinking about the same thing over and over and over again.

Of course can go the other way as well. When we've got something on our mind. We're worried about something and it vrittis, it whirlpools it cycles around the head, this has such a profound impact on our energy. Doesn't it. And when we're worried. I bet the breath isn't slow and deep and diaphragmatic. The breath is short and sharp and shallow. And like we talked about in the pranamaya kosha; this affect the physical body as well. 

And so now we're starting to see the link between the physical body the energetic body and the mental body. How one can positively or negatively influence the other two.

 Vijnanamnaya kosha. The wisdom body. 

And now we're starting to move towards the bliss body, which is the fifth and final sheath. Beyond the bliss body is consciousness, is awareness. Is enlightenment. 

Vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom body, is our inner knowing. It's our wisdom. It's our intuition. 

It's that incredible sense of calm that you get when you've had quite a profound meditation. It's that true knowing when you're faced with a situation and it's so clear to you what you need to do. 

Being able to connect with this inner knowing with this intuition, with this insight, for me is one of the profound benefits of yoga. 

But of course this inner knowing can be covered up by the manomaya kosha by thoughts, repeating thoughts, emotions and memories. 

The vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom buddy can be covered up, when the energy is still in stagnant and not able to move around. And the Vijnanamaya kosha can be covered up by any troubles in the annamaya kosha in the physical body. 

Anandamaya kosha, the bliss body. 

This is the bliss body. It is joy. It is eternal contentment. And peace. Free from the other four So you might think about it as the other four koshas being at peace. Or working your way through the four koshas to be able to connect with anandamaya kosha with the bliss body. 

You could think about this as samadhi the eighth of Ashtanga yoga. 

And you could think about this as the final Maya. The final little piece of illusion between yourself and consciousness. 

So. I think sometimes the koshas can feel extremely abstract. And if that has been the case, that you are hope that I've given you another way to look at them. I think as a yoga teacher, They can really be incredibly inspiring to work with. 

If somebody has had pain for a little while, and it's affecting every part of their life because pain can. 

The kosha model gives you different ways in to work with that person. You could help them with their breath. You could help them connect with the energetic systems of the body, the chakra system, the prone of our use, whatever is already in your background to help people. 

You could help somebody reduce their ruminating thoughts by giving them a mantra or meditation and working with the manomaya kosha. 

You could help guide somebody maybe with a yoga nidra or something like that to connect with that inner wisdom with their vijnanamaya kosha. 

Or if somebody's physical body is absolutely fine, but they really ruminating. They're really anxious about something, then you can work with the annamaya kosha, the physical body. And the pranamaya kosha, the energetic body to help calm the manomaya kosha down. It gives you effectively five routes in to working with people. I really, really hope that you found that useful. If you think that that has ignited a love of energetic anatomy and you want to know more about the subtle energies in yoga. You might want to take a look at our course, that's coming up in March next year at Yoga Hero in Leeds. Which is myofascial release, energetic anatomy, and yin yoga. We would absolutely love to have you, and all of the information's in the show notes. I'll see you next week for our episode, which we'll look at weaving the koshas into yoga classes. And until then, Happy teaching.