Track 1: Kosha puja

Prayer to the Five Sheaths of the Soul

Mantra Aum namah annamaya Aum namah pranamaya Aum namah manomaya Aum namah vijnanamaya Aum namah, anandamaya namaha Free translation “Oh my dear body, I greet and respect you as the temple in which I live. Oh my flowing life energy, I greet and respect you as the light that rises through me, surrounds me and permeates me. Oh my courageous decisiveness, I greet and respect you as the life force that expresses all my thoughts and feelings. Oh my luminous insight, I greet and respect you as the limitless space of my essential knowledge and substantive wisdom. Oh, salutations to you, my inner lotus, I greet and respect you as my loving and blessed essence.” About the Kosha puja

The Kosha puja lets you express your gratitude for the value of the five sheaths, layers, skins, or energetic mantles around the most essential aspect of your existence: your soul. They form your energy space and consciousness and allow you to experience how transparent your relationship with your soul is. The openness, purity and permeability of this energy sphere, and therefore your consciousness, determines how you experience your soul, your essence and your humanity. The first layer is the annamaya kosha, the material body, the cellular body, or the food body. The literal meaning of anna is the sheath that comes from food. The second sheath, which extends both through and outside the body, is the pranamaya kosha. The Sanskrit word prana means both energy and life force. The third sheath, the manomaya kosha, which is felt from the outside and surrounds the soul, has to do with everything around your mental activities. Mental activity is a combination of your thinking and feeling and the way they merge in your actions. The Sanskrit word manas, from which mano is derived, means mind, psyche, or brain, and this is where all the signals, memories, conditioning, and realizations come together and lead to your way of interpreting, viewing, and acting. The fourth sheath around the soul, seen from the outside, is the vijnanamaya kosha. This covers everything related to insight, transcendental knowledge and wisdom. It is the domain of the gnostics, the jnanis and the mystics. The Sanskrit prefix vi- means that something transcends what comes after it. The Sanskrit jnana means knowledge, and because this knowledge transcends something, vijnana, it means knowledge that has transcended ego-related interpretation and narrow-mindedness, in other words, wisdom. Finally, from the outside in, you come to the fifth sheath around the soul, the anandamaya kosha. Simply put, this is the layer that is characterized by a feeling of supreme happiness. After all, ananda means blessing or bliss. It is the area where you feel completely blessed, loved, and safe. The combination of these values could also be called soulfulness. It is therefore the layer at which you as a human being can experience your soul in its purest, most unveiled value.