Week Four - Vijnanamaya kosha - The Wisdom Body

Hello everyone,

Wishing you all a very happy Tuesday! Thank you so much to those who came for practice last week, where we endeavoured to explore yoga as a tool to calm the manomaya kosha, the mental/emotional body. As we continue inward now through the koshas, the yogic layers of our perception, we arrive at the vijnanamaya kosha - the wisdom body. And this is where it starts to get really interesting! 

The wisdom body is the fourth layer of our koshas, which are the sheaths of reality surrounding the atman, the true self. We all know this body well.

The wisdom body is a sensory body, a feeling body. It is the right instinct to run without first having a rational cause. It is the whisper on the wind that says go there, not that way, not just yet, this is it, wait, go now. If you have read and felt Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book: Women who Run with Wolves, then you will have a very deep understanding of the wisdom body. If you haven't read it - do yourself a favour! It has absolutely nothing to do with yoga - ha! But it is a worthy read; a Jungian psycho-analyst's take on how ancient mythical stories parrell the feminine journey from unconscious to conscious. In the book, she speaks with incredible detail on what it means to have deep, inner knowing, and how to trust it. 

While the vijnanamaya kosha (the wisdom body) is mysterious, subtle, changeable, and based in sensation, even a sixth sense - you may also recognize your wisdom body as being the place where your higher moral guidance dwells; your conscience, your compassion, your discipline, your purpose. The yogis described it as your intellect, your 'higher mind'. The manomaya kosha, which we explored last week, was then described as your 'lower mind' - full of thoughts, emotions, and reactions. I think it's interesting to point out that Carl Jung (who defined a lot of the psychology we understand today) made a very similar distinction between emotions and feelings. He said that emotions are unconscious reactions to a situation, and that feelings are in fact a form of true and rational communication of what the situation is. Essentially, where the manomaya kosha/emotional mind can be full of illusion (suffering, bondage, fear, desire) - the vijnanamaya kosha/feeling mind is always pointed towards truth, and the ability to create with purpose in the world. 

Abraham Hicks, another non-yogi, speaks wonderfully about something very similar; calling what the yogi's refer to as the wisdom body, your guidance system. The idea is to simply use your present moment feelings (good feelings vs bad feelings) as your guide, and understand that the universal law of attraction will bring more of whatever you give attention to and follow. Basically, follow what brings you relief. Essentially, if something feels good, then it will lead you somewhere good. And visa versa. 

I like to think of the wisdom body in this way; not so much as an 'inner voice of divine wisdom' in my head (because I think this can get so messy!), but rather as a simple feeling of: oh, that's a bit of a relief, I might just follow that. And, oh, that's even more of a relief, maybe I'll choose to let that go and do this instead. Maybe I'll say no this time. Oh, thank god (!!) I said no! Now, this feels great. And now, okay, maybe I'll say yes to that. That feels really fun. That feels really easy. That feels free. That feels a lot better.

I think we need to come away from this esoteric idea of spirituality. Some of the most spiritual, present, wise, healthy people I know are just everyday people. You do not need to go to an Ashram in India to experience your wisdom body, and you definitely don't need to take ayahuasca in Brazil to know your purpose or experience your true self (ha!). Spending quiet time in wild, open nature is usually enough for most people to feel it. And loving and appreciating another, I think that's about as good as it gets.

Ahhhhh these emails are getting cheesier and cheesier every week! My apologies. I really love to write these letters - so if you are still reading, thank you! 

Yoga this Sunday is on at 6:30pm in Thrive, as usual, and there are a handful of drop in spaces available so please reach out if you'd like to save your space :) 

All the blessings in the world,

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Mary Oliver

Le grá,

Macha