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The five koshas, or 'layers' of the body, constitute a map for navigating the inner journey.

By Shiva Rea

In the beginning of your yoga practice, a lot of time is spent exploring your physical body. The first step is becoming aware of the entire field of your body from head to toe and all the little crevices that are highlighted through yoga postures, such as the arches of your feet and the side ribs. Learning how to align your joints, bones, and spine, engage your muscles, sense your skin, and even become aware of what is happening to your organs and endocrine system within the poses teaches you to harmonize your first kosha. When I teach yoga or do my own practice, I start with a keen awareness of the first kosha—the body sensations—to make the more subtle layers of the self more accessible. In other words, if you want to deepen your breath or affect your state of mind, you have to honor and pass through the gateway of the physical body.

The next three layers of the self are considered to be part of the subtle body or suksma-sarira, as they are unseen and cannot be tangibly grasped. They can, however, be felt, and they have a profound effect on the physical body: You would perish if your pranamaya kosha, or breath body, ceased to function. Throughout the day the breath body can go unnoticed and become limited in range, like a caged bird that forgets how to fly. To experience the pranamaya kosha, contemplate the reality of how your next inhalation literally circulates through your entire body through the oxygen in your bloodstream. On a physiological level, the layer of prana refers to your circulatory and respiratory systems—the rivers of life flowing in you—as well as to the flow of feelings in your body. The system of yogic breathing exercises called pranayama is designed to increase and cultivate the quality of the pranic body. When you start to know where you are in your physical body through the alignment of the poses, you will have more freedom to explore the flow of your breath. By shifting to deep, slow, and rhythmic breathing in your yoga practice, you are becoming conscious of and affecting this second kosha. As you increase the amount of oxygen in your body, this pranic body starts to come alive. The coordination of your inhalation and exhalation with the movements of your physical body, as in the Sun Salutations, is one of the ways in which the physical body and breath body become synchronized with the mental body (concentration and awareness).

This third layer, the manomaya kosha, corresponds to your nervous system and expresses itself as waves of thought or awareness. How active this third layer is becomes apparent within the stillness of a yoga pose: Try resting your eyes on a point and concentrating on the sensation of your breath rising and falling in your chest. See how long it takes before a thought-wave, or vritti, passes by.

Often our minds are as overloaded as a freeway in Los Angeles, constricting the flow of your journey or yoga practice. If your mind is obsessed or is going in different directions, your breath becomes erratic and your sense of physical ease and balance wavers. Your breath can serve as a bridge between your body and mind. Expanded breath = Expanded mind = A sense of openness in the body. For most of us, our yoga practice is devoted to learning how to get the flow of these first three layers happening. Like knowing the best route home, observation of how these three layers interact in your practice will also help in the flow of your daily life. Many teachers and students use ujjayi breathing during yoga practice to find this balance. Drawing the breath over the back of the throat helps to focus the mind and coordinate your movements within and between asanas.

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