5 koshas

Do you remember the scene from Shrek, where Shrek explains to the donkey, that ogres are like onions? According to yoga philosoph, people are quite like onions too. There are four other layers except the layer of our physical body. They're called koshas and each one of them controls a different area of our life - our thoughts, emotions or the ability to feel joy without any outer reason ...

Annamaya kosha
Physical sheath

The first sheath is the physical layer of our body. The word anna could be translated as food, nurture. This layer includes our body and all its processes - our bones, muscles, digestive system, respiratory system, blood circulation etc. ...
The physical sheath can be affected by asanas - yoga poses, which you have to practise in with respect to the limits of your own body. Don't try to imitate yoga teachers and yogis on the photos of instagram. Each body is different and some poses have to be practised for a longer period of time, some of them may never look like on the photos - and that's totally fine :)

Pranamaya kosha
Energetic sheath

Energetic sheath is made of our beath. Breath connects our body to our mind. If your breath is calm, you body and your mind is cal as well. You can work with this sheath by pranayama - yogic breathing techniques. Some of the well known breathing techniques are for example alternate nostril mreathing (nadi shodhana), lion breathing (simhasana) or for example Ujjayi.

Manomaya kosha
Mental sheath

Mental sheath is the only kosha that we are not born with. It controls our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and language.
When we are born, we live fully present in the moment - but we'r slowly learning to speak, we're learning the names of everything around us, we start describing things instead of experiencing them naturally. We're taking opinions, emotional and mental formulas from other people - our parents, teachers, friends ...
Sometimes it's good to just let the things flow and not to look for an explanation and solution for everything. When we're feeling sad, angry or disappointed .. we should just feel and experience the emotion. We can actuallz enjoz the negative emotion. We were the ones who started calling them "negative", which is basically just a word and without language .. there would be only that feeling. So just ... feel it and let it go.



Vijnanamaya kosha
Intelligence sheath 

The next sheath is the vijnanamay kosha which is responsible for our intelligence. In the present world, we see intelligence as the number of university diplomas, the number of languages we can speak or the collection of talents ... Yoga has very different attitude towards intelligence. If a person can enjoy their life and feel joy without any reason. Are you happy? Then you're intelligent!

Anandamaya kosha
Sheath of pure bliss

The innermost sheath is the so called anamadamay kosha - the sheath of pure bliss. The world ananda means "bliss" or "divine bluss" in sanskrit, which is the purest joy that comes form inside of your sould, no matter what's happening in the outer world. It doesn't matter if you're laying on the beach or sitting at your desk at work or school. Ananda is the bliss, that we create inside ourselves and that nobody can ever take away from us. 

The most common way to get into this state of mind, is by meditation, that helps to forget about the thoughts flow inside of our head, and that helps us to dive deeper into ourselves :)