Yoga, Awakening, and the Energy Body
Last Sunday, I facilitated a conversation about yoga, awakening and the energy body at my local yoga studio. We explored how yoga, meditation, and other life experiences can trigger healing that needs to integrate throughout the entire body in order to be fully lived.
In yoga philosophy, we are said to have 5 sheaths or layers (koshas) of our body/being.
Anamaya kosha - the physical and anatomical body
Pranamaya kosha - the pranic or energy body, our vital force
Manomaya kosha - - the mental and emotional body
Vijnanamaya kosha - the intellect, consciousness, and will; said to be our individual Soul
Anandamaya kosha - the bliss body; said to be the Universal Soul, our experience of all that is.
Healing can be triggered from any of these bodies, although I notice it often starts with the physical body (#1) and makes its way to integration in the bliss body (#5) or the opposite.
For instance, the awakening experience I had in March of 2023 started in the bliss body (Anandamaya Kosha) with a flash of white light traveling through my body (read about that here). Next, I recognized how my subtle codependent tendencies, including living with my husband, were interfering with my life’s work (Vijnanamaya kosha). Then I felt the pain of being out of alignment with my Soul.
As I grappled with what aspects of my life needed to change, I felt fear, I grieved, and I celebrated each letting go and stepping into the new - like telling my husband I wanted to live alone and finding ways to make that happen over the course of several months (Manomaya kosha). When I changed how I communicated and took the next indicated steps, energy was freed up in my body. Acupuncture, subtle chiropractic, and flower essences helped my energy body and nervous system integrate the changes (Pranamaya kosha).
Finally, the new alignment made its way to my physical body (Annamaya Kosha), showing up as pain in my groin. The metaphysical properties of a hernia aligned with the underlying early childhood experiences, beliefs, and behaviors I was transmuting.
When I first started practicing yoga, the healing process started in the physical body (Anamaya kosha) and moved towards the bliss body (Anandamaya kosha).
Moving my body into and out of yoga poses released emotions that had been trapped in the tissues, allowing stuck energy to be available to me, expanding my capacity to feel feelings and make life decisions more aligned with my Soul. This included joining a 12-step program, starting therapy to address family of origin trauma, changing my housing situation, and the like.
Moving into alignment with my Soul and eventually the Universal Soul/All That Is was hastened by receiving shaktipat (the grace of the guru) from Sivananda Sarasvati in the Cosmic Temple of an ashram about a year later (you can read about that experience here). You could say that over the course of 3 years, I approached this kind of transformation from both ends!
Viewing all life changes as an opportunity to become a more refined version of ourselves, one aligned with our individual Soul and the Universal Soul, is what yoga and conscious evolution is all about.
Allowing our intuition to guide us and calling up our courage to follow the breadcrumbs and live in uncertainty for a while is how we can best navigate these healing opportunities.
This is especially important to keep in mind as we enter eclipse season (September 4 to October 17). The portal opens two weeks prior to help us prepare and closes two weeks after to help us integrate our discoveries and experiences. The eclipses happen on these dates:
September 17: Super Full Moon Partial Lunar Eclipse. Release and integration of the last 6 months.
October 2: New Moon Annular Solar Eclipse (Ring of Fire). Opportunity to set your direction for the next 6 months and step into harmony with life.
Chani Nicholas has this great blog about the September 17th Lunar Eclipse that you can read here. Where these eclipses land in your astrology chart will determine what specific areas of your life are affected (relationships, career, finances, health, etc.), so connect with your favorite astrologer, or travel blind on this river of transformation!
Sending you much love and support as we all navigate eclipse season.
