The Pancha Kosha are the five sheaths or layers of human existence. They are also translated as the five bodies of man.
While modern science and medicine deal with a single layered existence, the Yogic and Vedantic teachings describe it as a five-fold existence. This concept is found well expressed in the Taittriya Upanishad.
The first of the layers is the physical sheath or physical body, called the Annamaya Kosha. It is the body or sheath (Kosha) compounded (Maya) of cells made up of food (Anna). This very same body will one day become food for a multitude of microorganisms, and it is the body that can be experienced by the five senses.
Pranayama Kosha is the body or sheath made out of Prana, the vital force of nature harmonized into the physical body by the life pumping action of the breath (Prana). This body or sheath is also known as the life-force body, the emotional body, or the vital body.
Manomaya Kosha is made up of the lower memory mind of Chitta, and the conscious mind, or Manas.
Vijnanamaya Kosha is the body permeated by the superconscious mind of the Buddhi and the Ahamkara, the self-ideating principle of the higher mind.
Anandamaya Kosha is the body of bliss (Anandam), and is the cosmic body or the cosmic egg. When the cosmic egg, Anandamaya Kosha, is perfectly centered by the lower bodies, then Samatvam or equilibrium is said to exist. For the physical body it represents homeostasis or organic equilibrium. It represents Samabhava, mental equipoise, for the mind, with all senses balanced and under the control of the Buddhi, the higher spiritual intellect.
The disassociation of the harmony amongst these bodies is termed NARA by Yogamaharishi Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri, the Founder of the Gitananda Yoga system in the tradition of Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga that continues through the work of ICYER at Ananda Ashram, Pondicherry, India.
When the Annamaya Kosha is mal-aligned with the other four bodies, physical disassociation or disease appears.
The body loses its normal tendency for a uniform and beneficial physiological stability within and between its various parts.
Psychic disorders may also be present but of a minor nature, such as being late for appointments or engagements, or constantly bumping into or “accidentally” hitting others.
Watch a crowded street and see those with “NARA” attempting to waltz ‘around” unsuspecting victims.
If you have ever met a person with “NARA” yourself, you know the tremendous embarrassment caused when you know that you will collide . . . and “do”.
This will also answer so many questions about accidents that just seem to happen and cannot be avoided.
A bicycle will swerve and hit the pedestrian. The cyclist claims there was “nothing he could do”. A car swerves out of traffic and a terrible accident takes place. Ships collide at sea, and aircraft run into each other thousands of feet in the air.
Param Pujya Swamiji also emphasizes that it is Prana, the catalyst, or its lesser forms of reflex energy, that holds all these five bodies together.
This above description of the Pancha Kosha, as well as the importance of understanding Nara, is drawn from the Yoga: Step- by-Step correspondence course of Yogamaharishi Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri.
Yogacharya Dr Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani,
Editor