The Koshas: A Map of the Inner World
Talk by Satchidananda
Hosted by Padmashree and Hotel Tamriz, Piriápolis
February 23, 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: [YouTube link TBC]
New to the yoga terms in this talk? See the Glossary of Terms.
Opening and Introduction
Hari Om Tat Sat.
Namaste to everyone. My name is Satchidananda. I recognize some of you, and there are some new faces here today as well. My sincere gratitude for making time to come to this presentation. For any of us who are exploring anything deeply, you know how valuable it is to be able to reflect that information — as part of the process of digestion and integration.
I am a yoga practitioner for over two decades now, and have also gone deep into other modalities like Shaolin Kung Fu. Lots of time in nature, and lots of time in the office with the laptop as well. I only mention that to say that this talk will hopefully be an integration of my background, and as such will hopefully present something in a different perspective than you may have encountered before. Most of all, I hope that you feel inspired to create models of understanding that feel real and practical to your life.
It's taken me about twenty-five years of exposure to this information, and a couple of big waves in life, to make the vidya accessible in a way that really makes a difference to positivity in my life.
My main training in yoga is from Satyananda Yoga. But I'm not a representative of the ashram in any way, and that also gives me the freedom to speak my thoughts freely. If there's something you disagree with, or you feel isn't a version you've heard, please know that's my version, and you can go to the ashram to get the original version.
We'll be doing a few practices. As with all practices, I don't know your background, so you have the option to just watch, rather than participate. All practices are optional. Be reasonable in anything you do. Everything will be very basic this evening. I also like to make comments on psychology and physiology — I'm not a registered psychologist or a doctor.
Opening Practice: Shantipat
PRACTICE — Seated meditation
Shantipat is a way for all of us to just sink in, independent of where we came from this evening. So please bring yourself into a comfortable sitting position — ideally where the legs provide a stable, balanced base for the spine, neck and head. Spine comfortably upright. Neck balanced on the shoulders. Head balanced on the neck. Arms relaxed, and the hands optionally in a mudra. A simple one is to touch the tips of the index fingers to the thumb. If comfortable, eyes gently closed, as well as the mouth.
Sit with yourself and give time to settle within your body. As you become aware of any body part, add that to the mental image of how you're sitting right now. Try and create a complete visualization of how you're sitting by actually feeling that part.
Notice that within the stillness of the body, the breath is moving on its own. Without feeling the need to change it, notice where it can be felt, how deep.
In this process of internalization, it's very common for impressions of the day or the week to present themselves. There's no conflict with the mind at this point. But it can be really helpful to just step back and be the witness of any mental activity. And whenever possible, come back to following the breath in and out of yourself.
Begin to progressively deepen the breath — each new breath a little deeper than the last in both directions. Add a mental focus: an imaginary circuit from the navel to the sternum to the throat, like a train track or a tube. As you breathe, feel how the air rises through the navel to the throat. When you exhale, feel how the breath descends from the throat, sternum and navel. You may visualize this movement as a light or as a sensation — whatever helps the mind stay connected with the breath, moving up and down through this frontal psychic passage.
With the next inhalation, extend that circuit through the throat and continue up to the eyebrow center. Now begin to breathe in and out through the eyebrow center — as if the inhalation pierces the eyebrow center and moves to the center of the brain, filling that region with prana, with vitality. On the exhale, the breath and attention move from the center of the brain, through the eyebrow center, outward. Now let the mind stabilize at the point of the eyebrow center. Visualize the form of a golden flame — the shape, the color. You may even feel the warmth. And if no image appears, maintain the idea that there is a light at that point.
Focused on this inner light, we chant the mantra Om three times, followed by the opening shanti mantras, all together. If you are not familiar with the mantras, listen to the sound and feel how they vibrate in you.
Rub the palms together — this is called palming. The idea is to create heat between the palms. When you have that heat, place them over the eyes and share the warmth with the eyes. Be aware of what you see in that dark space. With an inhalation, expand that warmth into yourself. And while exhaling, lower the hands.
Reflection on Shantipat
⚠ RECONSTRUCTED FROM TRANSLATOR AUDIO — please confirm this reflects what you said.
This practice of Shantipat is for me an example of the genius of Sw. Satyananda. For those who don't know him, he's the individual on the right side of the archa. A simple practice of Shantipat makes consciousness rotate through all the koshas. Each part of ourselves that we want to know more deeply has to be repeated thousands of times, because it takes a long time to deepen and make a genuine connection with that part. Repeating something many times is what's required to create that connection.
Each of us are experts in our area of knowledge. When we put focus there — when we give control to that environment, that space — that part really starts to shine. But outside that controlled environment, it doesn't take much for life to turn us over. With a little practice, one can enter dreams and work in the unconscious. And yet that same person, when they have to chant mantras in front of five hundred people at the ashram, falls asleep and nods into the microphone. That's the opposite pole of what each of us lives. We can be expert psychologists, advising others on how to fix relationships, and not know how to speak with our own partner or children. Each person can find their own examples in life.
Repeating something many times ends up establishing a connection — so there starts to be less contrast between a controlled environment and a spontaneous one. That is the motivation for the yogi. This is the motivation for anyone who wants to explore consciousness. For anyone who wants to explore the earth, the oceans, space — external or interior space. Each exploration requires understanding the laws of that reality. And those laws are not simple. We have been studying physics for two thousand years and new layers keep appearing. Each layer we discover gives us a new dimension of reality that keeps surprising us.
The promise is that many treasures exist inside many spaces. And like any treasure hunter, it's good to have a map — and a precise map is much better than an imprecise one. At the start we trust others. We want to take note and build our own map. And today's topic is exactly that — a fairly rustic map of our inner world. We're going to traverse five layers, though that number is arbitrary. These are not hard, well-defined lines. They're overlapping, interacting sensations. You can deepen into each of these five layers, and that is what we have done as human beings.
If during this talk any of these layers attracts you or calls your attention — and you haven't yet found the calling that life is calling you toward, your svadharma — pay attention to that. That pull may be something worth exploring further. Don't let that opportunity pass.
Lying-Down Practice: Kosha Rotation
PRACTICE — Supine body and kosha awareness
We're going to do a small practice, lying down. I'm going to be asking you to rotate your awareness in different areas. There is really nothing else to do. Even if the translation sometimes has a pause, don't worry about it — just keep listening passively.
Make your body as straight as possible in the spine. The feet are hip to shoulder width apart, rolling outwards as comfortable. Palms turned upwards. Back of the head balanced along the midline. Keep checking into your body parts and find a way to release the weight of them onto the floor. If you have any glasses on, or anything tight around the waist or hair, those can also be removed.
Right at this moment, check into how you feel physically — any body parts that may have been talking to you, or are talking to you right now. Notice how you feel energetically. Are you feeling tired and could stay in this position for the next few hours? Or feeling energetic and would like to run a few laps? Or somewhere in the middle? When you're with yourself in this state of stillness, is the mind loud or quiet? Is it happy to notice what's in the present moment, or is there something it's going to — in the past or future? There is no judgment either way. Really be the detached observer.
Are there any deep feelings that you're aware of carrying inside you? Any life situations you've recently found a solution for? Or that you continue to be challenged by?
And underlying any movements of the breath or the mind — can you contact that part of you that's always the same? That part of you that is the essence of you. That part of you that even at this moment silently repeats: I am. I am here. I am conscious.
If there is any positive sentence you use in your life, this is the time to repeat it mentally. Any sentence, any prayer, any positive resolution you use in your life — this is a good time to repeat it. Any sentence or prayer that somehow manifests any deep transformation you want to achieve. And if you don't have that sentence, you can visualize an ideal situation of yourself.
We are going to move our attention between the different layers, the different layers of our being.
Annamaya Kosha — Physical Body
We start with the physical body, or Annamaya Kosha. And when you hear the name of a part of the body, bring your attention to that part. To remain internally awake, you can visualize that part and mentally repeat it.
Awareness in the right hand thumb. Index finger. Middle. 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 of right foot. Heel. Sole. Top of foot. Right foot big toe. Second toe. Third. Fourth. Fifth toe.
Check that you are internally awake.
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. Heel. Sole. Top of foot. Left foot big toe. Second toe. Third. Fourth. Fifth.
Now moving along the back side of the body. Touch the mind to the heels. Calves. Back of knees. Back of thighs. Buttocks. Lower back. Middle back. Upper back. Shoulder blades. Space between the shoulder blades. Back of neck. Back of head. The spine from tailbone to back of head. Crown of head. Forehead. Right temple. Left temple. Right eyebrow. Left eyebrow. Eyebrow center. Eyebrow center. Eyebrow center. Right ear. Left ear. Right cheek. Left cheek. Nose. Lips. Jaw. Chin. Throat. Base of throat. Right chest. Left chest. Chest center. Upper abdomen. Navel. Lower abdomen. Pubic bone. Pelvic floor.
Check into your current state of consciousness. If the mind has entered sleep, remain connected to the voice.
Feel into the whole right leg and foot. The whole left leg and foot. Both legs and feet. Right arm and hand. The whole left arm and hand. Both arms and hands as one. Back of torso. Front of torso. The whole torso. Neck. Head and face. The neck, head and face together. Experience the whole right half of the body. The whole left half. Experience the whole body at the same time. Be aware of which body parts are within and outside the field of awareness, and bring awareness into those areas where it is not. Deepening into the experience of full body awareness — from the inside of the bones to the surface of the skin.
Pranamaya Kosha — Energetic Body
And now we move into the pranic dimension — the Pranamaya Kosha.
Within the stillness of the body, feel for signs of life. The beating of the heart and circulation of blood. Any digestion and metabolism of energy. Sensations of warmth or coolness in the body. Movements of the natural breath.
With each breath out, follow the breath from the sternum to out the nasal passages. This is the pathway of Prana, the upward moving vital force. Now with each breath in, feel it move from navel down to pelvic floor. This is the region of Apana, the downward moving vital force. Shift the awareness to the navel and imagine a side to side movement with each breath — the region of Samana Prana.
Relaxed body, open mind. Feeling for anything that feels like the movement of energy described. Place the awareness now through the legs and arms — the area of Udana, vital force. Any movements you are aware of through the legs and arms, in the form of the subtlest sensation you are aware of in those regions.
And finally, feel for an energy that pervades the whole body — Vyana Prana. It is the reservoir, or buffer, vital force.
Manomaya Kosha — Mental Body
We now move our awareness through the parts of the mind, starting with Manas, or perception and cognition.
Become aware of body parts and mind. Move your attention to what is in contact with the floor. Move your mind to the most predominant or strongest sensation. Stay there for some time, then find the next most predominant sensation — specifically, sensation of touch. Now include the top surface of the body as well. Continue to move the mind from sensation to sensation.
We move to Buddhi, or the intellect. Imagine a square. Place a dot at the center of each line of that square. Connect those dots and see what new shape is revealed, connecting only the adjacent dots. And with this new shape, find the midpoint of each new line and connect those new adjacent dots.
Let that go — move into the aspect of Chitta, or memory. Go back to the moment of waking up this morning. Recall the first sensation that woke you up. And begin to play through the day up until this moment now — the major moments of the day. Be aware at which points there are gaps and which points are vivid. Remain internally aware and awake with the review of the day. If the mind engages or gets distracted, come back to the review. If you finish the review, go back and add details.
Letting that go, we now move into Ahamkara. Imagine that your life is divided into four parts — your age divided by four.
What were you like in your first stage of life, in your first quarter? Your personality, your dreams. What do you remember about yourself in the first quarter of life? That feeling of being you. Now move into the second quarter of your life. What new identity emerged? How did the views of the world change based on these new experiences? Move into the third portion of life. What was the sense of self at this stage? Did the personality or self-identity take new forms? And finally, what is your idea of yourself in this current stage of life? What has been the transformation of the ego from that first stage? What aspects of you remain? What aspects of you have completely emerged, or fallen away?
Vijnanamaya Kosha — Intuitive / Psychic Body
We now rotate our awareness through the deep psyche.
Muladhara chakra — security and basic needs. The pelvic region around the base of the spine and pubic bone — joy and fulfillment of karmas, healthy sexuality and creativity. The area of the abdomen around the navel — willpower, ego, identity. The region of the heart around the sternum — community, generosity and deep feeling. The area around the base of the throat — transformation and purification. The area of the head around the eyebrow center — intuition, wisdom and guidance. The area at the top of the head — a sense of total integration between all other dimensions.
Have a sense of your awareness and state of consciousness as it is now. Is it predominantly in any one kosha? The physical body. Energetic body. Mental dimension. Intuitive or psychic dimension. Or some subtler aspect of consciousness.
Look into the space behind the forehead — the mental screen. Notice anything that may be arising in that area. Any color, any darkness or light. Memories or inner dialogue. Watch them like clouds, giving them permission to change and move.
And finally move down into the heart space around the chest. Checking in if you feel anything there. It can be physical sensations or energetic sensations. Actual emotions. Begin to breathe more deeply so you feel this area of the chest expand and contract. Take progressively longer breaths so that the abdomen is involved as well.
Begin to externalize the senses — awareness of sounds from all directions. Sensations of touch from below and above. Awareness of smells coming in with each breath. Visualize where you are in the room and features of the room. And know that this practice has come to an end.
Begin to bring movements into your fingers and toes. Wrists and ankles. Neck and head. Give yourself a long stretch like you are waking up in the morning, with a breath in. Then exhale and hug your knees into your chest. Rocking from side to side, massaging the back. And over the next minute, find your way back to sitting. Keeping your eyes closed if you are comfortable to do so, and remain in a state of stillness for a few moments longer.
In which dimension does your awareness naturally settle?
Bring the hands into pranam mudra. Move into a vigorous round of palming, trying to make the hands very hot. Then bringing that heat to the covered eyes. Connect with the sensations of pressure and heat. Inhale that warmth back into yourself. And exhaling, lower the hands.
We are going to take a five minute break. Try and keep it at five minutes if possible. And then we will come back to a few spinal loosening practices and one short pranayama, and then go into the more theoretical concepts.
Spinal Practices
PRACTICE — Standing spinal movements
We are going to do some standing practices just to give our spine a break. If you have never done these practices before, they will serve you for a lifetime.
The spine, if you look in yoga, the spine is the pathway that you find from Hatha Yoga all the way to Kundalini Yoga. So it's used in every single branch, from gross to subtle. Like that point from earlier — it requires millions of connections to really get into a part of ourselves. I highly recommend as many spinal awareness practices as you can in your lifetime. Because ultimately we want to be able to follow a single atom from the base all the way to the brain itself.
Feet together, hands interlaced on top. Inhale as you stretch upwards. Exhale, lowering. Four more times. Hold for a few moments. Exhale. Three on your own. Keep the awareness in the spine and on deep breathing.
When finished, separate the feet out, shoulder-width apart. Palms flipped upwards. Deep breath in. Exhaling, bend to one side. Notice what you feel and where you feel it. Inhale centered and exhale opposite. Three more on your own. If you can, even visualize the bend. Imagine that your breath is what initiates movement, and remain connected to the actual sensations in the spine.
The next round requires the arms being out. We're in a tight space, so you can even put your arms around like you're hugging yourself — just don't karate chop your neighbor. Twist to the left, pushing on the left shoulder. Inhale to center. Exhale, twist to the right. Three more on your own.
When finished, come on the hands and knees. A few rounds of the cat pose. Exhaling, arch up, chin down. Inhale, curve down, chin up. Three more on your own. Don't just do the movements — feel the movements. Is there any part of the spine you do not feel, or that you feel acutely?
Pranayama: Alternate Nostril Breathing
PRACTICE — Nadi Shodhana
When finished, come to sit on the heels if okay for your knees, otherwise a cross-legged posture. Hands resting on the thighs or lap.
Awareness at the entrance of the nasal passages. By feeling the force coming in and out of each nostril, estimate which one is breathing more strongly. This is called Svara dominance. It tends to fluctuate every sixty to eighty minutes. It is an indicator of which nervous system is more active.
We are going to use one of the most beneficial and gentle pranayamas for bringing it towards balance. We are going to imagine inhaling through the left to eyebrow center, exhaling down the right — then inhaling back up the right to eyebrow center, exhaling down the left. So you are always inhaling from one side but exhaling from the other, and then inhaling from that other side and exhaling from the first.
Continue some rounds of alternate nostril breathing. This is an ideal pranayama to do between any transition in the day — arriving home from work, preparing to go to sleep, even waking up in the morning. The breath is as silent as possible, at the same time as long and deep as possible. So in the same way that you are balancing the two nostrils, it is also a balance between effort of breathing and depth of breathing.
Next time you exhale, start to breathe in equally from both. Each breath in merges at the eyebrow center, each breath out splits and flows out equally.
Bring the hands into pranam mudra, move into a round of palming, cover the eyes, gaze into the darkness. Inhale deeply into yourself. Exhaling, lower the hands and slowly open the eyes.
Theory: Gross and Subtle
I've done two of these talks already in Montevideo, in different venues, and of course they change with each time because they're not really scripted. And this time I was determined to do a little bit of practice first. For those of you who are yoga teachers or practitioners, there's always value in hearing something being done slightly differently — especially if you feel like you know the practice. It's very easy to slip into a routine where something works and so you just deliver it the same forever. I think that's great, but then we risk plateauing our own knowledge and how to engage with those in front of us, including ourselves. And for those of you who may not be familiar with some of these practices, I think it's harder to find them online whereas the information is abundant.
First idea: things that are gross and things that are subtle. There's an aspect of reality that's available to our five senses, and there's an entire aspect of reality that isn't accessible by our senses — or at least our external senses.
And yet most of us would agree that if we were to suddenly become blind, we're still a person. We have a sense of self, right? Now cut out a secondary sensation — now we can't hear as well. Still a person or not? What if we cut out all the five external senses? Maybe an altered sense of reality, but we can imagine we'd still have a sense of — I'm here, don't kill me, right?
This is a really interesting topic in the world of coma patients. Sometimes no real sign of life other than some brainwave activity. And yet we've had people come out of really long comas and say: No, I was having an inner experience. I was there. And all of us experience that even in states of deep sleep. We're not there, but through some training we can progressively develop a sense of — I'm somewhere.
Even with the physical body, you can start to cut off limbs, but as long as the spinal cord, a few vital organs and the brain are intact — and the same thing happens with the physical body. We can remove some parts, amputate, but leaving behind some important organs, we still have the sensation of existing. As if the vital force continues to maintain a force of consciousness and vitality, a sensation.
There are yogis who are aware of this, and when I say yogi, I mean anyone who has the consciousness to explore the inner world. And when I use the word yoga, I don't speak exclusively of Indian thought. Yoga and tantra as a search for universal patterns is not distinct to India, and no one has a claim on it.
So the yogis who observe that you can cut away aspects of at least these three layers — physical to mental — and removing these layers, we can ask ourselves: at what point do we stop being us?
It is very difficult, because no one wants to die doing this process. Many people have given up their lives trying to transmit this. All of the gurus have sat in between fires for multiple years. That practice is known to kill people. That's one of the last practices for a number of yogis, because it's extreme — physically, energetically, mentally. And the idea is one, to burn karma through that austerity. But the second is, through that stress, to force oneself into the most subtle cracks of consciousness.
The Three Bodies and Five Koshas
In the physical dimension, I only listed a few, but you can imagine that there are many more. And all the things that I have put there — in the physical body — are superimposed with the energetic part and with the mental part. The heart, for example, will not beat — that I'm aware of — without a functioning brain. But just entertain me for a moment and imagine what I mean by physical really means physical. Imagine that the physical part, for a moment, is only the physical part. As if it were the brick of that wall.
So the energetic part is the part that permeates that physical part — it can navigate or dive into that physical part. And if you study cell biology and the biological chemical reactions within, energy has evolved to both flow and remain charged like a capacitor. Even in the wall there is potential energy, there is energy within the cement. There is energy running through the wires that light up the lights.
And this mental dimension — I invite you to think of it as the functional mind. A mind that can be programmed and changed. Perception, cognition. A lower intellect — meaning decision making, pattern recognition. Memory recollection, memory storage. And a sense of self that has this idea of: oh, I am this distinct person.
I have not had the experience of being confused as someone else. I'm sure that is possible. My ego has been healthy in this life to where I'm contained. A lot of work is done in the more advanced branches, like bhakti yoga, where there is the intention to actually dissolve the ego in order to more universally feel what everyone is feeling. That's described as Atma Bhava. Sometimes in psychic experiences we also have a sense of shared reality. But shared ego is more rare, as far as I'm aware.
This here is considered part of the gross body. These two — the subtle body, especially in this area. A really good example of a subtle body is the body that you move around in when you are dreaming. How many of you remember your dreams? How many of you repeatedly remember your name in your dream? When's the last time in your dream you could say definitively: I am Satchidananda from Nepal? How many of you could say in your dream: I am so and so from Uruguay? And think how many times you repeat that when you are awake in a normal day.
I find it very hard to remember my name in dreams. In fact, when I've tried to do so, I've come up with other names. That's why it's subtle — it has unexpected results, it's harder to access. Even making a mental body, for some it may be easy; for me it's really hard. I have to construct every single part. And it never looks like this body.
The Causal Dimension: Vijnanamaya and Anandamaya Kosha
Then we enter a causal area. And when I say causal, I want you to consider what that means for you.
I'm going to use the metaphor of the seed. If you truly know what type of seed something is, you can predict the tree or the plant that's going to emerge from it. The Vijnanamaya Kosha contains all the seed templates in this reality — the entire physics of the world. When Newton, or the other parallel discoveries at the same time as him, discovered all the discoveries that took place at the time of Newton — intuitive gravity — they found a way to explain a template for this reality. Tens of billions of light years. So that design called gravity seems to be universally true as far as we know.
Even more interesting to me — any discovery from this dimension, one of the most important things is that any discovery from that dimension, as wisdom would suggest — which would be wisdom, knowledge — seems to be true for the physical and the psychological dimensions.
Have you ever been in the orbit of someone you didn't want to be, and you wanted to be? What is a really good way to do that? Find someone with a bigger gravity. This is why gurus have been around for thousands of years. If you find your master, they're going to have a center of gravity that's like a black hole. I've seen it thousands of times in the ashram and in my own life. It can work for the positive or the negative. That's why we all need to have a really heightened sense of our orbits and influence of others.
Every physical body has a physical gravity and every mind has a psychological gravity. Buoyancy, or the ability to float, is important for lifeguards. Buoyancy as a tool for remaining positive is important for our psychological health. And yet some of us may not have any safety gear in our lives, in the same way that we have safety gear in a pool.
But in the yogic model, we're all swimming in the samsaric ocean of life. So until we learn to swim really, really well, it can be very helpful to be mindful of our surroundings. It can be very helpful — and sometimes life-saving — to have the right equipment around. That's what yogic lifestyle and yogic tools largely is in our first stage of evolution. Just like children: when we don't need the floats anymore, we put on the scuba gear. And then we can really start to dive into the depths of these more dangerous or unknown realms.
Subdivisions of the Koshas
I've written down some of the subdivisions which we did in the Yoga Nidra. In terms of energy flow, there's like five major types of prana. If you study Chinese medicine, they go into great depth — meridians, the energetic quality of food, sub-centers in the body, and how to shift them with lifestyle and diet and thought.
In the mental dimension, these are the very rough distinctions of the lower mind. In the mental body, there are these four very clear divisions. You can go into much more detail.
And for Vijnanamaya Kosha — what I suggest is to use my own terms. So like patterns, designs…
⚠ RECONSTRUCTED FROM TRANSLATOR AUDIO — please confirm:
Sometimes life becomes challenging because I disconnect from that area and experience a deep lesson. Two months later, I'm repeating the lesson — so it wasn't as deep as I thought, or my connection wasn't as stable as I hoped. How to give more priority, more attention to that, to Vijnanamaya? To get out of the cycle of making mistakes and learning again.
The most attractive part of that body — as it comes out of the individual being and we begin to access more universal knowledge — the formulas of gravity did not exist until we intuitively began to imagine that there was something. The force existed, right? And so one has to ask themselves: well, if knowledge can be accessed directly, how do I encourage that so I don't reach the same conclusion through trial and error? Does that make sense? Because that would save a lot of time and energy within a lifespan.
This is why we always start with awareness at the eyebrow center. Why? Why the eyebrow center? Because it's the claim that that center awakens intuition. And why are we always doing that at the beginning and ending of every practice? Anyone? Because it requires millions of connections repeatedly to stabilize a connection.
So if you look at the yogic practices, those things that are the most significant will be seeded everywhere throughout a practice. The mantra Om. The mantra Shanti. Sankalpa.
Sankalpa is an act of willpower. If you put your hand on your leg and try and lift it, you can only explain how that was achieved to a certain point that I'm aware of. At some level of explanation, something happens within that says: I will lift my hand. Yes, the biology supports the movement. Yes, energy is required to work against gravity. Yes, the nervous system has to be intact between hand and brain. Yes, movement has to be possible. But ultimately, something within you — aside from a reflex — has to give consent to that action. This is called Icha Shakti — the desire for something to happen.
Science calls it Big Bang for our current physical reality. The esoteric explanation is an act of Icha Shakti. Somewhere in the causal field, before time, there was an impulse to be. And now we have the tangible reality. But we're not disconnected from that initial action of thirteen billion years ago. We can't be — logically. Otherwise we wouldn't be here looking at each other.
It's like asking: where is the beginning and end of a river? There isn't one. It's all ocean, sky, river. The divisions are utilitarian. But the reality is more continuous.
So if there is the interest to know how far back we can reach into ourselves, that will always pull us back to the causal dimension. All of this will end up bringing us back to the causal dimension. So most of these layers that we can contact at the same time will give us the feeling of stability and integrity — because all of these are like a part of who we are.
The Koshas as a Map: Personal and Relational
⚠ RECONSTRUCTED FROM TRANSLATOR AUDIO — please confirm:
Jim Carrey said that depression is like the soul asking for change. At the time of COVID there was a very strong depression. He was in peak physical health, and managing all the computer systems of the ashram.
But totally ignoring these two dimensions — which left me with a table with three working legs. And as soon as I started to feel more pressure on this leg, I found that the whole system collapsed.
And in that discovery of how that happened and how to get out of it, I came across a lot of students who were going through similar things. And in each case, one of these four tended to be lacking — or in other words, undernourished.
And that's why we started out with Shantipat, rotation through the five koshas. Yoga Nidra, rotation through the five koshas. And the Satyananda Yoga recommendation for the day — to do practices for each of the koshas, small amounts, throughout the day. Because it really does require that real-time assessment of the health of each of these dimensions.
Some of us are really good at balancing on two legs, as long as life doesn't throw anything too unexpected at us. And sometimes we see very stable people crumble under circumstances that's hard to understand why.
SWAN Practice with the Koshas
PRACTICE — Self-inquiry tool
There is a practice called SWAN — Strength, Weakness, Ambitions and Needs. And one way to use that is with the koshas. You write down all your physical strengths and weaknesses.
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By experience I know that my neck is one of the weakest parts of my body. Number two, the lower back. And third, the knees. So when I do my daily practice, I give special attention to those three areas. Energetically I have some idea of what exhausts my pranas and what recharges me. When I forget that, I feel without energy, tired, exhausted. The same for the mental dimension. Smoked a lot of marijuana as a kid — my short-term memory really took a hit. So I know what's good for me: the day review. The day review is one of the most potent practices for recovering short-term memory and developing visualization. If you have elderly parents or know children who have trouble focusing, look for simple, natural ways to work on short-term memory and develop visualization. I was both a teacher in high school and a lawyer for years, and worked with people who were on the path toward death. Each group benefits from and seems to enjoy reviewing what they have just experienced — in a day or in a life.
Through these practices, one begins to realize the length of one's legs. And then we realize they're at different levels — so what happens if we put a bowl of soup on top? It's an unstable table.
And sometimes in life we put things on our table — which we are going to call life — and we achieve, place, and we lose. It can be the loss of relationships that are significant to us. It can be the loss of happiness that was promised by a job or an object. In all cases, I think, that tends to roll off the leg that's the shortest. It's not even the case that these legs have to be so long — they just have to be balanced relatively. They just have to be medium, or well balanced. And sometimes all the legs are there, but they are weak, weak. We don't have time to get into that in this session, but it's what would be the part of the Gunas — it's the quality of what we bring into our lives as structures.
Daily Life and Relationships
And because we are out of time, the last thing I want to say is — knowing that these are not individual and isolated — to take time to inspect every life experience, mundane to profound, and map out how many different koshas are involved in that experience.
Sleep, for example, involves all of the koshas. You know that we have found that even life forms without spinal cords display sleep. Life forms without nervous systems, like jellyfish, have observable sleep states. To me that's really interesting, because it implies it comes from a deeper area than just biology. Even modern scientists say this is not the first Big Bang — which means there's a point at rest between manifest and unmanifest, where all of everything is just rest. This is the creation story of Vishnu in the scriptures — he's in a state of Yoga Nidra until the idea comes: Oh, let's enjoy a creation again. Different explanations for the same phenomenon.
Relationship dysfunction — I use this just as an example because it's been coming up in a lot of friends and family. Partners who have trouble connecting physically or emotionally. But there's no checklist of what can we do together in these different koshas to start building a connection again. It's hard to imagine that you're going to repair sexual distance if you can't hug someone and really enjoy that hug. Or have a deep talk with your son or daughter if you can't even talk about the day with a real sense of interest.
And so that's the way I've started to use the koshas as a map in my life — to have them actually laid out in front of me. And when I experience an imbalance — which is daily, usually by nine a.m. — then it's become a really fun process to say: in which multiple koshas is this connected to? And that's always shifting, because we are dynamic field entities.
Closing
That's all the ideas I could get out with the time allotted today. That's mostly what I had in my notes. I have transcripts, and if you fill out the feedback form, I'll send you the notes to the past two talks as well.
I know an hour or two-hour talk is a lot of ideas. I really hope you take some time to read back through this in your own way, using your own resources. Create your own version of this map. And then give me some feedback. In time, it's so enriching to hear someone else's model of moving through themselves — no matter what you're engaged in in life.
I believe if you put some attention to these five koshas before you begin, it's going to enhance whatever you're doing.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
We're going to end it there. You can mentally repeat Om Shanti with me. And we went over time by fifteen minutes — if you have somewhere to be, please don't speed. And otherwise, take care. Thank you very much for your time.
Transcribed and formatted with human-AI collaboration