The ultimate intention of yoga practice is not simply strength, flexibility or even a calm mind, but to work towards becoming an integrated human being in all ways. Yoga means looking after and connecting to all parts of ourselves; body, mind and soul.  Through this connection we can observe our behaviours and their consequences in a healthy, truthful, kind manner.

The original yoga practitioners, after many centuries of accumulated practice, formalised a set of suggestions which they had found led to a happy, deep, rich life. The so-called Yamas and Niyamas were expressed from around 300BC. Times have changed, become more complex, yet these guidelines can help us today more than ever.  By following this ethos*, we can more easily conduct our daily activities with physical and mental health and happiness.

In class for the first half of this term we will be looking at qualities which influence our behaviour and help us to co-exist harmoniously with others and to be respectful to ourselves (The Yamas).  After that we will explore the observances to keep and the good habits to develop. (The Niyamas)

The Yamas and Niyamas are not about right, wrong and rules…they are not strict ethics per se.  They are basic common sense.  Living according to the yogic ethos is about a better life in the long run.

*(Ethos: The characteristic spirit of a system …the distinctive features of a particular culture or group as opposed to Ethics: standards of right or wrong)

Yamas (Yama originally meant bridle or rein…think of a rider using reins to guide the horse’s direction.)

Ahimsa (Kindness)

Satya (Truthfulness)

Asteya (Honesty/Non- stealing)

Brahmacharya (Moderation or abstinence)

Aparigraha (Letting go/non-grasping or hoarding)

Niyamas

Saucha (Purity)

Santosa (Contentment)

Tapas (Determined effort)

Svadhyaya (Study of the self and the universe)

Isvara Pranidhana (Surrender/Awareness of the Divine)

Our fifth body is so subtle that most of us find it very hard to locate, let alone live in! Yogic philosophy sees it as the “final veil” wafting between our ordinary consciousness and our true higher self. Genuine sages and enlightened people who live in their “bliss bodies” inhabit a space of perfect atunement and contentment.

Yet, connecting with Ananda-maya-kosha is not unattainable for those of us who put some work into the first four sheaths. Those of us who practise intensely focussed meditation sometimes touch this space, often to have it slip away just as we realise we are there. This taste is a tantalising affirmation that by attending to our physical, energetic, mind/emotional and wisdom bodies that we are on the road to a life of health, clarity and peace.

The fourth sheath of your whole body is said to be composed of “deep understanding”.  The mind (mano-maya kosha) simply coordinates the sensory input and the motor output… but understanding is a higher function.

“Separate from that self comprised of mind, there is another internal self constituted by intelligence…of this self, faith is her head, righteousness is her right wing, truth is her left wing and yoga is her trunk” Taittiriya Upanishad

Vijnana-maya kosha allows us greater perspective and insight, better discrimination and sensible detachment.  It imparts healthy conscience, common sense and has a very “humane human” quality compared with the first three sheaths.

Early yogis considered the development of a healthy Vijnana-maya kosha so important that they placed the practices for it before physical poses at the very beginning of the yoga system.  These are the yamas and niyamas, a code of ethics urging us not to harm, lie, steal, binge, or grasp for more than we need.   Instead we are asked to try to practice cleanliness, contentment, self-discipline, continuous self-study, and devotion.

Regular meditators become aware of Vijnana-maya kosha as they start to identify those regular patterns of the mind as just that: entrenched patterns and habits composed of thoughts.  Then a deeper realisation and understanding seems to settle and a dependable relationship with inner guidance develops.  Once-disturbing thoughts now lose their charge and clarity and a way ahead becomes apparent.

 

The third sheath in our bodies contains all our basic mental processes.  Without it the physical body can survive, during a general anaesthetic for example, but cannot act independently.  Mano-maya-kosha allows us to learn; to act to survive.

Western physiology considers our basic thoughts occurring in the brain…although recently there has been some interesting research into heart and gut memory.  Mano-maya-kosha sees the entire nervous system and endocrine system (nerves, central nervous system including spinal cord and brain, and hormones) as being the conduits of Mano-maya-kosha.

This third body draws heavily upon “the five senses” and governs our likes/dislikes, basic desires, reactions, rationalising/analysing and memory.  It gives us the sense of the “me” or the isolated self.  Mano-maya-kosha allows you to drive a car to where you are going without you consciously thinking about every step in the driving process.

Considering the absorption of impressions from the senses, it makes sense to be careful what we offer Mano-maya-kosha.  Long term exposure to distressing images, unnecessary noise and other low-value stimulation may warrant a re-think.  Yogic practices such as mantra meditation or Pratyahara (the sensory withdrawal we do prior to relaxation in class) give mano-maya-kosha a tune-up and clear out the clutter.  The key is regularity in the practice.  If that’s not on the menu for you, you might consider a regular mindful walk or a sit in a garden enjoying all it has to offer (without the earbuds in your ears or phone by your side).

The second sheath in our bodies runs all the animating processes of the body – it is the “energy field”.  Without it the processes of the physical body immediately start to wind down and deterioration begins within minutes.  Prana-maya-kosha operates from the moment of conception to our last breath.

“Inside (the first food sheath Anna-maya) is another body made of life energy. It fills the physical body and takes its shape. Those who treat this vital force as divine will experience excellent health and longevity because this energy is the source of physical life.

Taittiriya Upanishad 1000-600 BC

The various positions in a yoga practice are said to affect the flow of prana (life force/energy/chi) in the body, they remove energy blockages and work with the chakras.  Prana is deliberately regulated through various breathing practices (pranayama).

A good yoga practice will spotlight that feeling of “aliveness”; it can raise a drudgy heavy feeling up to become a source of energy.  When you feel rebalanced and quietly stimulated after yoga, that’s your prana-maya-kosha singing.

The densest of the five koshas (sheaths) is easy for us to understand as it’s made of matter as we know it.

“From food creatures are produced:  whatsoever creatures dwell on earth.

Moreover, by food they live, and into food they finally pass.  

Those who care for this body are nourished by the universe itself.”

Taittiriya Upanishad 1000-600 BC

 

Organic and inorganic matter in the form of food builds our bodies from the earliest cell division, its intake as food maintains our bodies and then, when our physical life is over, molecules and atoms which make the physical body up contribute to the food cycle again.

In our physical yoga practice (asana and vinyasa flow), we take care of Anna-maya-kosha by

• stretching, strengthening and relaxing muscles and tendons
• encouraging greater range of movement in the joints
• massaging and toning the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, reproductive and endocrine systems

Western classical anatomical and physiological study divides the human body up into systems such as the circulatory, digestive, and nervous and so on.  These divisions definitely make a complex organism easier to understand for a student, but by accepting that our bodies are made up of these individual parts could cause us to lose sight of just how interconnected these systems are.

Yogic physiology adds interconnection and underpinning to the Western approach by adding some extra dimension.  It acknowledges the importance of the physical aspect of our bodies, but only the first part of our whole “body”.  A very ancient yet tightly held yoga tradition sees us having five bodies, with each “made of increasingly finer grades of energy”.  These bodies are like sheaths and sit within each other like a set of Russian Dolls.  They are known as the Koshas and they are:

Anna-maya-kosha: what we see as the physical body

Prana-maya-kosha:  the vital force, the animating aspect

Mano-maya-kosha:  thoughts, reactions, mental processes

Vi-jnana-maya-kosha:  intuition, wisdom, intelligence

Ananda-maya-kosha:  innate harmony, joy, happiness, fulfilment

This term we’ll be including consideration of these subtle parts of our body in the practises which address the western tradition of body systems.  Each week here in the News section I’ll expand on each layer a bit more.

If you are interested in more detail here’s the link to a very nice explanation from Linda Johnsen from Yoga International:

https://yogainternational.com/article/view/the-koshas-5-layers-of-being

Sahasrara Chakra: the Crown Chakra.  There’s some variation in the literature about the details of Sahasrara…and maybe the details don’t matter so much.  Some texts have it seated in the space between the brain and the skull at the very top of the head.  In others it hovers over the crown of the head outside the physical body.

Sahasrara chakra is represented as a thousand-petalled lotus flower in full blossom at the crown of the head.  Its colour is violet, bright white or multicolours.

The 7th chakra relates to the brain and in particular the brain’s chemistry and circuitry.  It associates with the hypothalamus, which regulates body temperature.  Sahasrara relates to neurotransmitters such as serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine which all influence our mood.  It resides with the pineal gland which secretes melatonin regulating sleep and wakefulness.

Yoga philosophy sees us all with an unchanging, eternal, undamaged perfect spirit which has been overlain with harsh or misleading experiences, like layers of sticky mud which flung at it.  A little different to the 6 chakras beneath it, Sahasrara is a gateway through which an individual who has worked through all the other chakras connects with that unchanging perfect spirit in all other beings.  We experience the union, or yoga, with everything else.  There is no fear, doubt or longing.  It is possible to experience knowledge beyond words or intellect.

Ajna (“Ahgnia”) Chakra, the sixth of the seven major chakras, sits above the top of the spine in the middle of the skull, the nearest outside point being the space between the eyebrows.

It is variously represented by the colour indigo or by a pale moon colour, colours of deep silence and stillness, also of resonant emptiness and solitude.

The elemental association is that of pure essence, the sense it relates to is intuition.  The seed sound of Ajna is aum (“om”).

Physically Ajna relates to the eyes, the skull and the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain).  It also relates to the pituitary gland – responsible for regulating hormonal secretions from other endocrine glands to maintain our biological processes.  The pituitary gland is the master commander of the hormonal system and links activities of our brain to our body chemistry and vice versa; our body chemistry and physical health directly affect our mental state.

Ajna processes the input of the chakras beneath it.  It is the eye of your mind which gazes inwards.  It helps us make sense of what we take in with our senses, our urges, clarifies our duties and goals, and regulates what we feel emotionally.  It is the source of our intuition.

In the face of mental and emotional turbulence caused by change, Ajna takes the “charge” out of the situation by discriminating between opportunities for influencing change and times of acceptance where change is unavoidable.  It helps us to quickly see the situation and then put that worry behind us.

If the mind is stilled Ajna is the conduit to clarity of thought, inspiration and the right way forward.

 

Vishuddha Chakra (“Vi-shoe-dah”): The name of the throat chakra means “purity”.  Situated in the throat centre, the basic concept of Vishuddha is that of space, and sound in space.

It represented by the colour blue or smokey violet; the colours of distance and space.  It is connected with the element of space (or ether), with the auditory sense and with the seed sound ham (“hum”).

Physically we think of Vishuddha in terms of neck, mouth, jaw, vocal cords, and lungs.

Physiologically Vishuddha is related to the thyroid and parathyroid glands which are responsible for regulation of metabolism, body growth and the activity of the nervous system.

It is also in this chakra that needs, desires, directions and emotions are expressed through vocalisation.

Through Vishuddha we balance silence and speech; being content with silence when there is no reason for sound, and not afraid to speak out when the situation warrants.  A powerful way to effect positive change is though healthy connection with this chakra.

We communicate clearly with forthrightness, kindness and compassion.