Week Three ~ Manomaya Kosha, the Mental Body

A Chairde,

As we come into the third week of our yoga term together, I hope that you are feeling grounded and settled. This short letter today will offer some soft insight into our class theme this Sunday, expanding on our journey through the Koshas, the yogic bodies. Also a gentle reminder that we will have no yoga next week for the bank holiday weekend (October 25th) ~ as I will be skipping off on my witch's broom to play an elaborate real life Traitors game in West Kerry!

At the moment I have a few spaces available in the Soft Stretch at 6:30pm, if you would like to come for a drop in yoga practice this Sunday :) It will be a gorgeous slow flow, full of gentle side bends and detoxifying twists :) The Hatha at 5pm this week is full at the moment, but if you are signed up and cannot attend you might send me a little message so that I can open up a space to someone on the waitlist :)

Now, the Manomaya Kosha. Our contemplative theme for this week's yoga exploration. In yoga, the koshas are considered to be the five sheaths through which we understand our reality. So far this term we've explored the outermost physical sheath, the annamaya kosha ~ this is the see, taste, touch experience of what is real. We've also explored the energetic sheath, pranamaya kosha; the felt sense/nervous system experience of what's happening around and within us. The manomaya kosha, I think, is one of the most simple and yet simultaneously perplexing of all the pancha kosha to understand, for manomaya is the mental/emotional body; it is our perception of reality through the lens of our psyche. 

The other day, I succumbed to the hype and downloaded the new Dracula adaption on audible. I was short on time and excited to listen to it, so I decided to put it on headphones during my morning walk. I felt as though I was stepping out of my world and into another ~ one full of mystery, intrigue, loyalty, and wonder. When I got home and took out my earphones, I was shocked and amazed to realise that I had almost no recollection of my walk around Greystones whatsoever. I couldn't remember what the weather had been like, or even what route I had taken!

For me, this is a perfect example of how powerful the manomaya kosha is as a mask for reality. The other day I had a world full of gothic horror in my ears to pull me out of my body, but I know I don't always need an audiobook to check out of my surroundings like that. I could just as easily have been lost in my thoughts, caught in my feelings, trapped in my story about what's happening. If the story of your life is thrilling enough, tragic enough, consuming enough, it will take you out of your awareness in just the same way. So much so that you don't remember where you've been. Maybe, you don't see the life around you at all. 

Just as with all things, experiencing life through the lens of manomaya kosha can be a good and bad thing. The actress Jenifer Anniston once spoke about how much it moved her to hear that her TV show Friends was like a lifeline for many cancer patients, because it allowed them to momentarily experience a different story to the one they were living. Healing through escapism. In this way, we can see that all of the koshas actually have the potential to offer respite from suffering. They are meant to be an ecosystem, and understanding them allows us to better handle the difficult moments in our life. Like with the TV show Friends, when the body is in immense suffering, the mind and love of story can offer a safe place to take refuge. Thank god for artists! Just the same, when the mind/psyche is suffering, coming back to the sensations of your body and your felt sense is incredibly healing. That's what yoga asana practice is for me; a chance to stop my mind and be in my body. As we delve deeper into the system of the koshas throughout this term, we will soon realise how wise the ancient yogis really were. For they wrote about how, when we truly look deeply into ourselves, we see that there are places to find refuge even when all of our outer koshas are suffering. When the mind is in pain, the body, the nervous system, even when our soul is crying out. Still, there is a refuge. An ultimate reality. A connection. That is what the Buddha called the 'island within'. Moksha. To be free. Unconditionally.

Le grá,

Macha

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

By William Butler Yeats