These are the gifts of our human life. Each body is a sheath, resting inside its outer layer and enveloping another body within it. All join to animate the depth and fullness of our human experience.

The physical body (annamaya kosha) is made up of food. Space is its heart and earth its foundation.
Our physical bodies, through attention to form, movement and stillness, can become increasingly subtle and transparent, forming a bridge between earth, health and well being, and the subtler realms.

Within it is the vital body (pranamaya kosha), made of living breath. Its heart is the wisdom of the Upanishads. The Atharva Veda is its foundation.
Our breath lies between our bodies and our minds, the unceasing movement that gives life to both. This subtle body can become present to us, refining our sensitivity, our potential for depth, and allowing us to breathe deeply, with more freedom and ease.

The mental body (manomaya kosha) is made up of waves of thought. Practice of meditation is its heart, and discrimination its foundation.
We often feel we live within our mind, contracted in its tight enclosure. Daring to truly go inside the mind and know its waves and knots from within allows our patterns to unravel as if through exposre to the warmth of the sun. Experiencing this, we can know that it is not up to us to “fix” or change ourselves, and we can allow space for what comes and goes.

The wisdom body (vijnana kosha) is made of detachment. Bliss is the heart and Brahman the foundation.
We each have the experience occasionally of knowing, beyond words and beyond doubt. When we are very clear, it is this sense of knowing that directs us and gives us a sense of rightness and meaning to our lives.

The bliss body (anandamaya kosha) is closest to the Self, the source of abiding joy.
The laughter of children, the smell of flowers, the taste of ice cream, so many experiences open us through our senses into joy. Our open heart can allow us to know joy through the many doorways through which it appears.

Our fears and contractions are rooted in our sense of separateness. All the sheaths that make up our life are a direct gate to the experience of non-separateness. Making contact with other levels of experience helps us to establish contact with a deeper, knowing part of ourselves.

Words and mind go to him but reach him not and return, but he who knows the joy of Brahman, fears no more.
                                                                             — Taittreya Upanishad