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Living Fully In Yourself

Satchidananda — Clínica Vitola, Yoga Carrasco, Uruguay — February 10, 2026

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Living Fully In Yourself

Talk by Satchidananda

Hosted by Clínica Vitola, Yoga Carrasco

February 10, 2026

Note on This Transcript: This document was created through human-AI collaboration using Whisper transcription technology. The original talk was delivered in English with real-time Spanish translation. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, transcription errors may occur. Please refer to the original video recording as the definitive source: https://youtu.be/VKDi0xx5an0

New to the yoga terms in this talk? See the Glossary of Terms.

Opening Remarks

Hari Om Tat Sat, to everyone.

My name is Satchidananda. I recognize many of you and I'm happy to see you so soon. And for those who I'm meeting for the first time, thank you for your interest and support in the Yoga Vidya.

The first talk in Uruguay during this visit was yesterday evening. And the points that I forgot to mention, I want to start with right now before we formally begin the session. One of those is thank you, Clara, for translating.

Invitation to Immersive Practice

So, as Janardhan mentioned, there are a number of activities starting from tomorrow. And I happen to be one of the facilitators, but trust me when I say I'm not trying to promote myself.

The topic of koshas and yogic bodies and holistic health requires immersion. I've studied this for over 20 years, but life changes have only happened in the past five. Because that's when I really had to apply the theory.

So, you have an opportunity with the activities planned to put yourself in an immersive yogic setting, routine. There are a few things I've identified that really bring us into contact with all five koshas—five layers of what it means to be human.

One of those is pilgrimages. All cultures have that, to go on.

Another is ashram life or monastery life, monastic life. Maybe you have access to that in Uruguay.

A third is an anushthan or an extended period of austerity. This is what Shivaratri is traditionally. Some people don't eat for 24 hours. I know people who don't drink a drop of water for 24 hours. I know people who will not swallow their sweat, their spit, for 24 hours—they'll spit it out rather than down their throat. Some people choose not to sleep for 24 hours. Some people choose not to speak except the name of God for 24 hours. Some people will not speak at all and will only repeat a mantra or nothing at all for 24 hours.

And then, the fourth activity is a curated, iterated retreat. Where it's designed to systematically help us reflect on each of these layers of being.

So if you're not planning any austerity or pilgrimages in the next week, I invite you to at least attend Shivaratri or any day or the whole retreat. And I mean that sincerely.

We can wait for life to bring us to our knees and then figure out a survival plan. Or we can willingly put ourselves into a setting that deeply challenges us and recognize our strengths and weaknesses in a context of positivity.

I have slowly learned to prefer the latter and I invite you to the same.

Disclaimers

So that's about the activities. And a few more disclaimers from my side.

I love talking about physical well-being, mental health, consciousness and the spirit. But I'm not a physical trainer or a doctor. I'm not a certified therapist or counselor. And I'm not many other things.

But I have dived into life and it has pushed back against me numerous times. And from those experiences I really like to share what I've learned. Not to talk about what works, but to motivate you to really experiment with your life in a holistic way.

There are multiple experts in this room. My guess is no one of them can solve a problem that you have. We have to learn to be able to read ourselves at multiple layers.

So whatever I say is just a hint—please put it through your common sense filters. If it doesn't resonate, let it go. Don't even hold on to it for a moment. And if something does resonate, note it down mentally or on paper and find a way to unpack it.

Almost 90% of the talk is taken from my training in the Satyananda Yoga tradition. And I pay my deepest respects to the gurus of that tradition, Swami Niranjan who is living and Swami Satyananda who has left. But I'm not an official representative of the ashram or that branch of yoga. I'm an okay practitioner getting better.

Last thing because I know it might affect me at some point. There is something about Uruguay and the heart energy. It just opens it up for me. It makes me sensitive. So I already see some people tearing up and that's going to get me super soft. So if I need to take a breath or two, y'all just feel free to do the same at that time.

Any questions before we begin?

About Tonight's Session

Thank you very much for those of you who had time to fill out the feedback form. It looks like for many of you the topic of tonight is relatively new. And a number of you are interested in tools for self-reflection and life harmony. And for those of you who pointed out other interests, I'm confident that there will be something for each and every one of you here tonight.

During one portion of the session we will be lying down for Yoga Nidra. But until that point, please arrange yourself comfortably where you can see without stressing your neck. And then for the practice itself we can come back to our mats.

PRACTICE: Opening Shanti Patha

We'll go ahead and begin with Shanti Patha.

Please bring yourself into a comfortable sitting asana. Any position where you can sit comfortably still for about five minutes. And ideally where the spine is also comfortably upright.

Begin to make any physical adjustments you need to bring balance to the left and right half of the physical body. Using the contact points between the body and the floor as feedback into that symmetry.

Once you create a stable base, bring the awareness into the sit bones and the buttocks and feel the weight distribution on each side. And then move the awareness up the torso from base to top of shoulders. Feeling for symmetry and balance in this mid portion of the body.

Notice if there is any tension in the shoulders or around the neck. And see if you can suggest or allow yourself to relax any amount.

The hands in a mudra. A simple one is to touch thumb tip to the index finger. Palms up or down.

Bring the awareness into the neck and feel that it's balanced. Bring your attention to your neck and feel that it's aligned with your shoulders, creating a natural length to the lower spine. And that the head is floating effortlessly on the neck.

Eyes and mouth gently closed.

Feel into your whole sitting position as you visualize yourself in your mind.

It's possible that impressions from the day are moving within you. How are you experiencing that? Is it at the physical level somewhere in the body? Is it revealed in the way that you're breathing right now? Or maybe thoughts or memories moving through the mind. Or emotions or feelings still being carried.

However the proof of your life is present within you, be a witness to it. Permit yourself to be that witness, step back and just observe.

Connecting with your own breath, begin to deepen it both directions. So that over a number of breaths, you're exhaling more completely and inhaling more deeply.

Add to this deepening breath a mental focus: the frontal psychic passage. An imaginary line, pathway or tube running along the front of the torso. It starts at the navel, moves straight up through the sternum and ends at the throat pit.

With the next breath in, guide breath and awareness up this pathway. And with the exhalation, guide breath and awareness back down to the navel. Continue this for a number of breaths. If you find that the mind is not willing to travel in a straight line, do not force it. With each new breath, a fresh start.

On the next inhalation, as you move up the torso, continue all the way to the eyebrow center. Hold your focus at an imaginary point between the two eyebrows, just above the brow line. Turn the eyes inwards, as if to look at that point from inside.

Imagine looking at a flame which burns steady and bright. If the image does not readily appear, remember a favorite candle. Or feel free to draw the outline of that candle. To see the colors of a flame. Or to feel a warmth at that point.

With our awareness on this inner light, we'll chant the mantra OM three times together. Followed by the opening Shanti mantras all together. If you're unfamiliar with any mantra, simply listen and feel into the vibrations around you.

Slow, full breath in to chant the mantra OM.

[Three rounds of OM]

Om Sahana Bhavatu Sahano Bhunaktu Sahaveeryam Karavavahe Tejas Vinavaditamastu Ma Vindhisavahe Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

Remain with your body still and eyes closed for a few moments longer, and consider the intention for which you are here this evening.

And if there is any aspect of your life that you invite radical, positive transformation into, how could you form a short, positive sentence to describe the transformation you want? In a way that is not dependent on external circumstances to change, but rather some inner quality to emerge, develop, or evolve.

Imagine that that quality does emerge and manifest in your being. What would that feel like? What would that look like? How would you move through your day, through your life with this new ability and transformation?

Is this possibility imaginable, or is it far from imaginable? Are you able to contact the new emotions you would experience, or is that out of reach?

Bring your awareness to the heart center between the sternum and the spine. Take a few deep breaths in and out. Imagine breathing into that point and breathing out of that point.

And bring the hands together in pranama mudra, thumbs touching the sternum. Rubbing the hands vigorously, generating as much heat as you can. And when you have something to share back to your eyes, cover the closed eyes with those palms.

Noticing any colors or shapes, or maybe simply void.

And take a deep breath in through the eyes into yourself. And exhaling, you can slowly lower the hands, and open the eyes.

Hari Om Tat Sat

The Genius of Shanti Patha

Is that new to anyone, to do a Shanti Patha? No? Yes? Great!

I believe that Swami Satyananda Saraswati and the Satyananda Yoga tradition are pure geniuses. You take something that we do at the beginning and end of every class, that for many of us we think of it as routine, obligatory. And yet, guides and teachers like him, and other masters I've had in other modalities, have taught me that what you do the most is probably the most significant.

For students of the Satyananda Yoga tradition, the things we tend to do the most: chant the mantra Om, Shanti Patha, and repetition of Sankalpa.

A Shanti Patha is an entire package, it's a sadhana. It asks us to:

That is a sufficient life teaching—we don't need much more yoga than that.

The issue is we have so many tools, and very few of them are actually being applied.

Think about any time today where you felt stressed, or knocked off balance. Having done Shanti Patha a thousand times, did anyone today set aside three minutes to go through it to recover? Did anyone at a moment of imbalance think to do Shanti Patha to recover that balance?

Because we ritualize these techniques, rather than seeing them as the tools that they are. I really don't want you to do that with the information that's going to come through today. Find ways to put the awareness into daily life. And I'll try and suggest some ways we can do that.

What Does It Mean to Live Fully Within Yourself?

What was the title of this talk? Habitarte por completo, no? To live in your body completely. Ah, yes, to live fully within yourself.

As a traveler, I am blessed to be staying in many homes. And I have a very curious personality. Some may say nosy. Some may say snoopy. Chismoso, yes.

So yoga is well suited for me. Because if someone says, ah, there's this thing called the subconscious, I want to know how to get inside it. And if someone says, there's this thing called the unconscious, and I say, well, what is it? And they say, we can't talk about it. No one knows about it. It's unconscious. Then I'll spend months trying to find the door.

So when there's a title like "live fully within yourself," it invites the question: well, what am I actually?

And this is one of the original questions that sparked the spiritual revolution. Tens of thousands of years ago, probably hundreds of thousands of years ago, whatever the first being was that had some level of self-awareness, there must have arisen the question: what are the boundaries of what I am?

And so we developed systems of measurement for the material reality. But the reality of us being humans, we've all experienced as multidimensional. And quite subtle as well. And that's what makes relationships quite challenging as humans.

We all know what love feels like. But how do you communicate to someone how much you love them?

We all know what pain feels like. But how do you get someone to really empathize with how deeply you're hurting?

Some of us have never even been given the words to describe those measurements. Some of us grew up in cultures where that may never have even been explored, much less acknowledged.

And that creates a challenging space for those of us who want to live in a state of peace. Because it requires contacting these various dimensions and bringing some sort of harmony or balance back into it.

And so that sets the context for us discussing koshas.

THEORY: Sanskrit as a Precise Language

There will be a number of Sanskrit terms this evening, not too many. It is a very old and very systematic language for describing all things subtle to gross.

Have you ever heard that Eskimos have multiple words for snow? And Japanese have multiple words to describe the space under a tree. Some cultures have ten ways to describe the taste of pasta. And others for the various flavors of love.

Sanskrit, similarly, has many ways to talk about manifest and unmanifest reality. And a very detailed spectrum of what humans can feel emotionally. Psychological states. Cognitive conditions and states. And also other words for the energies. And even the physical body.

So for that reason, I am happy to share the Sanskrit language with you. And for that reason, I will use the words in Sanskrit, but I will always translate them.

If you can't see, please get to a place you can, if you want to look at the board.

The Three Bodies

We are the human and we are going to unpack this a bit. At a very high level, we have three bodies.

  1. Gross (Dense)
  2. Subtle (sometimes called astral)
  3. Causal

I just want to spend a minute on this because at least these two are within our daily experience.

The Gross Body

Our physical body is definitely in the gross category, it's tangible.

The Subtle Body

What is an example of the subtle body?

Visualization.

I'm sitting here, but I can take my mind to my house in Nepal. I can actually move around my rooms and describe to you textures, objects. I can tell my nephew, take this, put it there, and when I go there physically, can trust that my mind had accurately described what needed to happen.

How many of you dream? Everyone dreams, almost everyone dreams. Some people don't remember their dreams. If you're in that category, that can easily be cultivated and becomes an important aspect when we start to contact our whole self.

At many stages, the dream body becomes a very effective tool. For example, how many of you have certain asanas that are impossible for your physical body? How many of you have tried to do that same asana in your dream body? Good.

Being able to take your sadhana into a dream state is a milestone for working with yoga practices. And the experiences you have in that freer state can be carried back into the awakened state.

And not just for touching your toes. You might have a boss that you find very challenging and can't say what you need to in real life. But through practices like lucid dreaming and vivid visualization, you can repeat that scenario enough until the nervous system is strengthened to carry out that plan in real life. And the astral space, the dream space, is often a safe space to practice that.

The Causal Body

Due to the short time we have, I don't want to go into the causal body too much. But especially for females, there are interesting aspects. Let me make sure I say this right.

The grandmother has already influenced egg production of the grandchild. The way that propagation and progeny works, at least in human species. And that's related to the science of epigenetics.

How our lifestyle choices now turn genes on and off. And how that genetic expression will create the next wave of organs and cells that will be passed down to our offspring and their offspring. And so it's a subtle but extremely practical science for us. To learn not only how to work with the body that we move in every day, but the bodies that we influence that will be walking in 20 to 30 years from now.

We all came from something. In Vedanta, the seed is the tree. There's no difference. It's just the perception of time that gives the illusion of growth. If you know what this seed is, you will know what tree it will become.

For many of us, our life changes are met with surprise because we have not sufficiently contacted and studied our seed form.

In more current psychology, this is what the unconscious is. Latent patterns deep within our psyche that bubble up to the subconscious mind and express themselves in waking life. So it is an illusion that we're making a lot of our choices as this conscious active mind. Much of that is predetermined in a dormant or semi-dormant state.

And the better that we know or can map out this terrain, the better we are at predicting and navigating our own life.

The River Rafting Metaphor

And I give one short story about river rafting in Nepal, which has some of the best and biggest rapids in the world. I went on a trip where there was rainfall every day and the river level was fluctuating. And the river guide was able to expertly avoid all the traps.

And I said, how did you get so good at navigating the river especially when the conditions are changing constantly?

He said, my team and I walk the river when it's not changing at all, during the driest time of the year where all the boulders and the crevices on the river are revealed to us. And once we memorize that, whenever water starts to flow we can predict what will happen.

And it was a beautiful synopsis of yoga psychology: If we develop a vision of our most subtle self, then we are in a much better position to handle whatever life brings to us in the form of various raindrops.

Okay, so any questions about that?

The Five Koshas

So we get a little bit more practical now. The Koshas are the five yogic bodies. Kosha means a sheath or a cover. They are a finer level than those three bodies we talked about.

We have:

1. The Physical Body (Annamaya Kosha)

Everyone here is in contact with their physical body. Has anyone ever been disembodied? Have you ever had a state where you couldn't feel your body or couldn't get back into your body?

[A few hands]

Sometimes in a room you'll have people who have been in accidents, near death experiences, emotional shock, trauma. Disembodiment is a great way to manage trauma. If you don't like what's happening to your body, that mind has the algorithm to say, I'm checking out until that's done. And it can take a lot of therapy and a lot of years to really get back into your body.

Most of these questions are serious, even if they sound fantastical, because I know from experience everyone in society has experienced things that are traumatic.

So when you have a physical body in the absence of anything else, you have a corpse, you have a lump of meat. Uruguayans like meat, so I know you all can imagine what that's like. You can also think of it as a lump of wood for vegetarians in the room.

2. The Energetic Body (Pranamaya Kosha)

How many of you are aware of your energetic body? Some dimension in you that changes throughout the day or day to day. Can you sometimes feel it in others when someone is really energetic?

This is why I love dogs. Their Pranamaya Kosha, especially puppies, is like... A puppy is this big, right? He can make all of us smile. Think about that, that something that weighs half a kilo can lift 40 times 20, 800 muscles against gravity. That is the power of the Pranamaya Kosha.

That is the power of a monk that has a strong energetic body. That's why thousands of people visit the Dalai Lama. Because these beings are charged and they will harmonize your energy body. If you've never felt that, go to someone who has that reputation and be in their presence for a year. Or get a puppy.

So what happens when you put energy in a physical body like a corpse or a log? Fire is a great example. You get a puppet, someone's moving that piece of log, right?

So the first example is what happens when you put energy in this physical body. If it's a corpse, it could be a puppet. And if it's a log, it could be fire.

But the puppet doesn't make decisions on its own. Everything is being dictated by a higher power.

3. The Mental Body (Manomaya Kosha)

Some of us, and this is not a trial, only live in these two bodies. Unable to make decisions on our own, we wait for someone to tell us what to do. There are many cultures that insist that some people have to stay in this state.

And you can imagine how yoga is not welcome in certain parts of the world. Because it implements the notion that you have a force within you that allows you to make your own decisions.

The modern world is familiar with the mental body and the mental dimension. To the degree of utter imbalance.

I forget the author of Homo Deus. Yes, Yuval Harari. He writes: for the first time we have more people killing themselves than being killed in all the wars in the world combined.

Which body do we tend to settle into? What do you get when you add the mental dimension to these two other systems?

You get a robot. A robot appears that it moves according to its will. But it's absolutely 100% programmed. Fully conditioned.

I can almost predict what a robot will do if I give it a certain stimuli. Beautiful woman, big breasts, eyes go over there. Guilty. Aggressive person, I go backwards.

It doesn't matter what your triggers are—I hope you are aware of them. The more you know your conditioning, the more emotional intelligence you will have.

Because you can make deeper choices than just responding to physical environment. I know to wear a long sleeve because people use AC here and I get cold. I knew to stay at home today because my energy would be used in this talk and I wanted to conserve.

From this point on it tends to be a bit more unpredictable. What if only two of you showed up tonight? How would that affect me? Or there was a storm.

When I went to Australia, there was the Bondi mass shooting. For Australians, that was deeply shocking. I grew up in Texas. I've been through that 15 times in my life. I went to that beach the next day. That's how life is.

4. The Intuitive/Psychic Body (Vijnanamaya Kosha)

So then the fourth is intuitive or psychic. How many of you have never had an intuitive thought? And I want to ask because it's not always clear what intuition is. Anyone feel like they've never had an intuitive thought? A sense of knowing in the absence of any direct evidence or logic?

Good.

What do you get when you introduce... Well, for psychic, it includes the whole emotional spectrum. And I want you to think of it differently than mental, which I mean is cognitive.

So what would a robot with intuition be?

Welcome, human. In my opinion, that's what sets us apart from a robot.

5. The Causal Body (Anandamaya Kosha)

And finally, the yogis say that there is also a causal body. The body of vibrations. And specifically, undifferentiated, homogenous vibration. From that, each new layer emerges.

We want to develop the ability to be in contact with ideally all five of these dimensions.

Mapping the Systems Within Each Kosha

We're going to get into a practice in about seven minutes, but at any time, if your legs are feeling achy, just feel free to move them around.

Very quickly, help me name some physical systems:

Great, so you get the idea. This is partly what we're going to be doing on day one of the retreat. What is the physical body really from people who know better than me the anatomy and physiology?

If you can contact your various body systems, you can feel into imbalance in those systems sooner.

If you're not communicating with these systems systematically, how do you know if they're out of balance? And then all of a sudden, we have knee pain. And then all of a sudden, our back goes into spasm. And then there's knots in our neck, and we pay thousands of dollars for massage. Too expensive, your massage. There's many sessions.

But it's not that the body didn't give us signs. That it wasn't telling us every step of the way, "Hey, something's happening here." We are very good at ignoring signs. It's a mental faculty, a mental strength. Misapplied.

Energetic Body Systems

Okay, energetic body. What are some of the different ways we can check balance?

And I'm going to fast forward this. From a yogic perspective, you have five pranas. And I won't name them all for time, but they're in different parts of the body. And they have different manifestations:

All sorts of ways to diagnose the health of these pranas. It's a great subject to familiarize yourself with.

Mental Body Systems

What about mental systems?

Sleep—where does sleep go? Sleep spans multiple, for sure. Definitely a lot in mental, some in energy. It's a good prediction for energy body and of the mental body.

How many people have ever experienced sleep issues?

That gets into the next point. How do we use any one of these as alarms?

We want to be able to go through every layer in each body, every system or subsystem, and say, is this where it should be? And as soon as it deviates from normal, that should be an alarm.

If we respond to that alarm early, it's probably easier to bring it back into balance.

If you hit snooze 20 times, what happens? You get stuck in traffic. You miss the important meeting. You get fired. Lose the house to the bank. Partner divorces you. And then you have thoughts of suicide.

This is like a normal thing that happens in the world. Ignore alarms, snooze on life. Next alarm, snooze on life and self-care. And when we finally wake up, we wake up to a really difficult situation. And it requires a lot of help from a lot of different experts, and sometimes family members and friends, for us to come back into balance, if we're lucky.

I've worked with a number of elderly people, one-on-one, who are entering their death state with things unresolved in life. It's hard to watch an elderly person go with so much sadness.

You know, when you leave the amusement park, ideally it's with a big stuffed animal and a smile. And yoga says it is possible, we can live skillfully. Enjoy most or all of our desires and leave lightly.

Intuitive Dimension

For the moment, I just use one word: chakras.

[Points to ceiling]

They are an entire map of what a human can experience. Fifth branch of yoga. Kundalini or Kriya Yoga. That's how powerful the yogis determined emotions and psyche are on the human life.

That an individual should first master their body movements, then their energetic movements including breath, then their mental movements, then one would be prepared to work with emotions.

A lot of our lives, certainly mine, is flooded with emotional input. I am ten times more likely to look at an Instagram post in the morning than I am to do my morning mantras. Even though the effect of a single post will have far greater implication on me than simply moving my wrists.

Similarly, if I chose to do the mantras with sankalpa, it would work for me in the positive direction.

Causal Body: Willpower

And that's all I'm going to write as one of the causal systems of how to measure it. What is your willpower?

Read any spiritual book from any spiritual master in any tradition. If they were for real, they would be talking about willpower cultivation.

Nothing happens without intention.

What created all of this? Intention. We want this to be.

You can't move your... dream, imagination, desire. In philosophical terms, it's called Iccha Shakti. The first Shakti is Iccha Shakti. The power of desire that something come into being. That's sankalpa.

That's why we start everything with sankalpa.

I know people who've trained that to the point where even mundane actions have a sankalpa. It becomes deeply ingrained.

[Clara asks a question]

She's not sure everyone knows what sankalpa is. Sankalpa is a resolve. An affirmation. An intention. That has commitment behind it. It is the vision of what you want to manifest. It doesn't have ideas of maybe I can, maybe I can't. At its causal state, it does not even need that. It is a power.

It's said that someone with sufficient willpower will be able to achieve something. Will say something. And reality will bend to make it true.

These are the old teachings. No one says that now. People have trouble bending now. Forget reality.

[Question about whether sankalpa changes depending on life stage]

There you can choose a deeper one yet.

Cross-Kosha Phenomena

Last point before practice. Looking at sleep as something that integrates different things. Stress is one example, probably affecting the whole world and for many hundreds of years.

Anything coming to y'all's minds? Challenges y'all face that affect multiple things?

Sleep for sure. Sleep will help bring energy back into balance. If it's not happening, it will pull away, it will bring into imbalance. Of course that will affect the physical functioning, the mental functioning. That can affect intuition and emotional management.

The Power of Willpower

An interesting point about willpower. Willpower can overcome physical limitations.

A 12-year-old boy in Australia this week swam hours to shore to save his family. When they asked him how he did it, he said, "I didn't want anyone in my family to die, I did not allow myself to stop."

Willpower can overcome energetic limitations.
Willpower can overcome mental limitations.
And willpower can certainly overcome emotional imbalance and limitations.

Usually the closer you get to subtle, the more potent it is. That's why psychic chanting of a mantra is considered far more powerful than out loud chanting. And that's why, in general, repeating the mantra mentally is far more powerful than chanting it.

Nutrition and Sexuality as Multi-Kosha Systems

The nutrition system is also complex because it pulls from so many different areas.

I want to mention a topic only because it has been coming up so much in my travels. Many people getting separated or relationship issues at home. This is cross-cultural, I'm finding, between the West and the East. And it's on the topic of sexual dysfunction.

And I think this was on my mind because someone did an interview yesterday and they asked what yoga could offer on the topic of sexology.

When I use the word sex, I want you to think about it in the most holistic way possible. From the power of creation, which will be in the part of the causal body. And in this sense, sexual energy is simply creative energy.

I put a lot of creative energy to organize this talk. In yogic terms, you could call it sexual energy because it gave birth to this talk.

And on the other end of the spectrum, we can think of it as human sexuality, two bodies or one body coming together.

I have been through in my life, and I certainly meet people now who experience sexual dysfunction, but the way they approach it is not systematic. And I want you to be open to using this for any example in your life that you experience dysfunction or disharmony.

Using the Kosha Model Diagnostically

So let's say that a couple is no longer comfortable interacting intimately. The kosha system gives us a really easy way to say: well, am I even comfortable just touching you or being near you?

If that's a no, there's no need to get into a dialogue about sexuality. This dimension alone is saying, there's a discomfort here at a very gross level.

One of my best friends, he has a background in massage. And his children, age 9 and 14, know how to ask for touch in natural, healthy ways.

When is the last time two people ever sat together and just harmonized or regulated their breathing? Or sat together in silence and just shared the experience? Or sat together and just experienced seeing, feeling, and listening together?

This is just one example in modern life that a lot of people are experiencing imbalance, where we can walk through the kosha model and say: how are we feeling here? Or can we share an activity without having to mix koshas? Can we isolate ways we interact rather than creating more complex interactions?

This is often why in a Satyananda yoga class, you'll be introduced to movement without any other instruction. And then we introduce breathing with the movement. And then we add mental visualization and sensory awareness with the movement and breath. And then awareness or witnessing of what that triggers emotionally, if anything. And then finally, planting the sankalpa of what the ideal or perfect harmonious movement would be.

And so it's very layered and systematic.

Maps for Navigation

All of this, hopefully, is coming off as a mapping system. A mapping system for oneself.

Who are some famous people that used maps? Or didn't use maps?

Sailors.

What happened to sailors with bad maps? We don't know. Because they crashed or got lost.

And what happened to sailors that had really good maps? They expanded our view of not the world, but the universe.

That's what we're trying to do, isn't it, when we say inhabiting the whole self? We're trying to really map out what that means and be fully present in that whole spectrum.

Peak States Across All Koshas

This is the last thing I say about sex. Again, not to focus on the word sex, but rather a peak state, which sometimes is referred to as an orgasm in the context of sexuality. What does that even mean?

We know, or hopefully know, what physical orgasm is. What is an energetic orgasm? What does it mean for all five pranas to be in perfect balance, harmony, and excitation?

What does that mean at the mental dimension, when all sensory faculties are on? Receptive and non-resistant. And merged with the object that they are sensing.

What does that mean at the intuitive, psychic, or emotional level, to have an orgasm at that level? And to experience that at the causal level? And to have all of that happening in all five dimensions at the same time?

To me, that would be a very fulfilling idea. Complete experience.

And this is one reason, whether it's sex, or tea, or a walk in the park, whatever we choose to do in life, sometimes it feels unfulfilling. And that's usually an indication that one or more part of us has not participated in that process.

A misalignment of the head, the heart, and the hands.

PRACTICE: Brief Movement Sequence

Okay, so with that, we go into a practice. That was a lot of talking.

Please come to... oh, we should do one movement.

Come into a squatting position, unless your knees... You're going to put your hands in between the knees. And as you draw the hands to the chest, open the cup. Exhale as you stretch forward. Inhale as you draw back.

And do this two to three more times. Really feel into your body, work with your full breathing capacity. Bringing the head forward and down will usually stretch the spinal nerves.

The next time you reach forward, allow the hands to separate. Put the fingers underneath the insides of the feet. Inhale, look up, straightening the spine. Exhaling, raise the hips up, head down. Inhaling, raise up. Exhaling, bending down.

Two to three more times on your own. There's no force required. Try and exhale out all the air in your lungs, even if you're not participating in the movements. Exhale completely.

And the next time you're squatting, release the hands.

PRACTICE: Yoga Nidra

Come onto your back, head facing me. In the pose of Shavasana, you want the spine to be straight. Arms, palms up.

I would like to ask, if you really need to leave in ten minutes, can you please raise your hand? It is 8:55 right now. You have to be very honest with me because I'm searching for boundaries now.

[Checks for hands]

Okay, so no hands there. If you need to leave in 15 minutes, please raise your hand, be very honest. All right, I've got 13 minutes. Janardhan's giving me, that's the absolute max.

If you're wearing glasses, consider removing them. If you have anything near you, around you, that's easily adjustable, see if you can make that adjustment.

See yourself, imagine yourself lying on the floor. Observe yourself, look at yourself from the outside in your body. The symmetry of your legs and arms with respect to the midline of the body. The balance of the head along the midline.

Take a deep breath in and feel and imagine your body expanding. Hold that breath in for a few seconds until a natural tension develops. When you feel it's right to let go, let it flow out of you. And allow the muscles to soften around the bones. As if melting to the floor.

Repeat that two more rounds. Deep breath in and hold. And when it's time to let go, let go of everything. The whole physical body with that breath.

Feel the weight of the legs on the ground. Arms pressing into the floor. Points of contact between back and ground. The back of head and the ground. Surrender the weight of the whole body to gravity.

Aware of the plane of contact between body and floor. Pay attention to the stillness of the body. And how within that stillness there are movements of life. Circulation of blood. Respiration and the breath.

You need not control any of these life functions. Simply be the observer, the experiencer.

Aware of the whole physical body and the breath moving within the body. Follow the sensation of the breath as it comes into you. Through the nose. Down the throat. Into the lungs. And all the way back out.

Become aware of other inner sensations such as inner sounds. The sound of the natural breath. The silence whenever the breath changes directions. Be the witness of that momentary stillness and silence when the breath changes directions.

Rotation of Awareness

The awareness will be rotated through various parts of the body and body systems. Hearing it, take the awareness into that area.

Right side: Awareness in the right hand thumb. Index finger. Middle finger. Ring. Little finger. Palm of right hand. Back of hand. Wrist. Forearm. Elbow. Upper arm. Shoulder. Armpit. Right side of torso. Hip. Thigh. Knee. Shin. Ankle. Heel of right foot. Sole. Top of foot. Right foot big toe. Second toe. Third. Fourth. Fifth.

Remain internally aware and listening.

Left side: Awareness in the left hand thumb. Index finger. Middle. Ring. Little finger. Palm of left hand. Back of hand. Wrist. Forearm. Elbow. Upper arm. Shoulder. Armpit. Left side of torso. Hip. Thigh. Knee. Shin. Ankle of left foot. Ball. Heel. Sole. Top of foot. Left foot big toe. Second toe. Third. Fourth. Fifth.

Be aware of both legs and feet. Any sensations within the legs and feet.

Both arms and hands. Sensations anywhere in both arms and hands.

The neck and head. Imagine the blood being pumped upwards from the heart. The food being digested downwards.

Midline awareness: Awareness in the mid region of the torso. Pelvic floor. Tail bones to pubic bone. Area of the navel and abdomen. The sternum and chest. The throat pit and neck. The eyebrow center and head.

Awareness of the whole right half of the body.
The whole left half of the body.
Awareness of the whole body.
Full body awareness.
Including sensations within.

Memory and Witness Awareness

Take your awareness to the physical body. A positive memory of your physical body, a time when it felt its best.

A memory of the physical body being challenged or diminished.

A memory of your peak energetic state in life.

A time of diminished energy in life.

A time of mental harmony and precision.

A memory of mental fogginess or incapacity.

A feeling or intuition that served you well.

A feeling or intuition that was unfortunately ignored.

Go back to the first memory you have of life.

A positive memory in midlife.

A recent positive memory.

Connect with that part of you that is the witness right now. Whatever state of consciousness you may be in.

And remaining connected to that witness, be aware of the mind and the senses.

Return to Waking State

Use that mind to feel the breath moving in and out. Deepening that breath gradually but intentionally now.

Use that expanding breath to make full contact with your physical body. Feel your whole body lying on the floor. Temperature of air on the skin. Remember exactly where you are in the time of evening.

And slowly come out of the still state by introducing movement. In the fingers and toes. Ankles and wrists. Neck and head.

You can give your body a long stretch as if waking up. And exhaling hug the knees to the chest. Rocking from side to side.

And gradually coming up into a comfortable meditative asana. Feel free to keep the eyes closed if you wish. Hands in a mudra, spine comfortably upright.

PRACTICE: Closing

Eyes focused on the eyebrow center. Imagine gazing within at a candle flame.

With our awareness on the idea or image of that inner light, we chant the mantra OM three times together, followed by Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

Take a slow, full breath in to chant the mantra OM.

[OM chanting - three rounds]

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

Hari Om.

Bring the hands into pranama mudra. Move into a round of palming. When you have warmth to share back to the eyes, cover them. Take a moment to notice anything you might see or not see.

And take a deep breath into yourself. Exhaling, lowering the hands.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

Closing Remarks

Thank you for that extra bit of time.

There are, at least, there's always extra ideas to share. What can I say other than I need five days to share them?

A lot of these sharings are many years of synthesis. So my gratitude to you for giving an audience to organize these thoughts that have been collected.

We did record it and I will happily share those. There will be a feedback form and at the end of the form will be a link to it. So you can listen again if you'd like to.

And finally, I really invite you to bring your awareness of your koshas into daily life. I think many things will come through this framework when you begin to do that.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

Thank you.

It's 9:15 for those of you who need to leave.