How wonderful to see a recent article in Time magazine on Yoga therapy and the five koshas as therapies being utilized within newly emerging mental and emotional health care protocols. It is very exciting!
And everything old is new again 
Very informative, good to know that articles like these are published in the mainstream media.
It’d be nice to see mainstream medicine heal the schism that currently exists between mind and body, so better more useful paradigms emerge.
I think I know a little bit about yoga, but I’ve never heard of the five koshas. Where did that come from?
Yay! I’m so excited!!!
Oops! I see that Nicole’s practice is called Five Kosha. Still, I’m not familiar with the term and would appreciate it if someone could tell me something about its origin.
[I]pancha: five,
maya: illusionary,
kosha:veil, sheath, sack[/I]
The five koshas are first detailed in one of the earlier Upanishads: Taittiriya Upanishad II.2-5. They are again spoken about and indentified with the four states of consciousness in Mandukya Upanishad.
Here is the only thing I could find online to share that has the Sanskrit, translation and solid commentary: http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/moksh/moksh_09.html
Most modern schools of Yoga, and most contemporary translators of the Upanishads, translate the original Sanskrit of the five into “kosha.” Shri Krishnamacharya, and therefore those within the Viniyoga Tradition, are the only ones to vary on this. They refer to the system as the Pancha Maya model or system. Gary Kraftsow is one such teacher offering this model.
I need to scoot out the door now, but let’s talk more about the koshas!
*nichole
Nicole,
Thank you for the information. The fact that you can trace the five Koshas to the Upanishads goes a long way toward making the concept legitimate, although one has to really examine these kinds of things with a critical eye to find out what you can accept and what you may have to reject. It’s not always easy to do.
I find it interesting that swami krishnananda relates each kosha to a subset of Samkhya principles. That is not spelled out in either the Taittriya Upanishad or the Moksa Gita that he is commenting on. He follows the Samkhya fairly closely, up to the Anandomaya Kosha, where the interpretation takes a more Vedanta view.
This statement: “The Self is the Knowledge and the Light itself.” is also pure Samkhya.
How do you use the kosha’s in your practice?
Great article, thanks for the read!
Great Article, thanks
Isn’t this kind of like the stuff Jon Kabat-Zinn has been doing with MBSR? If I remember correctly one of the things they like a person to have that is pursuing a certification in MBSR is Yoga.
Very interesting. Thank you for posting.