09/28/2025
On a recent trip to South Carolina to visit family, I watched our kids with our niece and nephews and how together they saw the world with wide-eyed wonder. Every seashell was a treasure, every wave an adventure, every laugh with cousins a moment of pure joy. They reminded me that this sense of magic is always here when we soften and see with fresh eyes.
In yoga, we speak of the koshas—the five sheaths, or layers, of our being:
1. Annamaya Kosha – the physical body, where we feel strength, openness, or fatigue.
2. Pranamaya Kosha – the energy body, carried on the breath and prana.
3. Manomaya Kosha – the mental/emotional body, where thoughts and feelings live.
4. Vijnanamaya Kosha – the wisdom body, the quiet witness within and our ability to observe without attachment or judgment.
5. Anandamaya Kosha – the bliss body, our innermost layer of joy, peace, and wholeness.
Over time, we collect stories, scars, and defenses. We begin to believe we are only those outer layers. But practice invites us to peel them back, to remember the steady radiance beneath it all—the part of us that has never been broken.
Like children, who see the world with openness and delight, yoga reminds us to return to that place within: spacious, luminous, and free.
