Continued from the last post:
We all have five bodies. Our first body is our environment. If there is poison in the environment, this physical body cannot exist. That is called Annarasmaya kosha. Food is not only that you eat. Environment is also food. Air is food for our lungs. Water is also food. Heat or warmth is also a kind of food. If you are in a place where temperature is -40 degree centigrade, then no matter how much food you have but you won’t be able to exist. So, heat is food for our body. One of course is the food that we eat. Peace and joy are food for the soul. Our environment is our first body.
Second is Pranamaya kosha – the energy, life force. You can sense when energy is low and when energy is high. You go to a place where there is low energy, and you feel like running away. You go to a place of high energy, and you feel like staying there. How many of you had this experience?
You can feel the effect of eating fresh food and frozen food in your body. Fresh food has more prana, and frozen food has very little prana. Similary, you find a difference in eating fresh vegetables, and eating thoroughly baked and cooked vegetables. So, second is Pranamaya kosha.
Then is breath. You can nourish your body but if your body is not breathing, it will go under Earth or become ashes. Our physical body has value because of prana, because you are breathing. 90 percent of impurities in the body go out through the breath. Only 10 percent impurities are eliminated through urine, stool and sweat.
Then next is mind - Manmaya kosha, the thoughts in the mind. Are you aware of the thoughts happening in your mind?
Then comes Vigyanmaya kosha - Intuitive awareness or knowledge. That is fourth sheet of our body.
Fifth is the bliss. So these are the five levels of body that one exhibits.
“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
~ Sri Sri Ravishankar
© The Art of Living Foundation