Vijnanamaya Kosha wisdom self

We continue our exploration of the koshas this week with the 4th kosha. Vijnanamaya kosha is our wisdom body. The seat of our intellect.We strive for both wisdom and intellect and yet struggle to define them in practical ways. That’s our Work IN today. We’ll look at simple ways to tap into this wisdom layer of our selves to build awareness and resilience on our journey into our true self.

Welcome back to our series on the koshas. So far we've discussed Annamaya, our physical body layer, pranamaya kosha our energetic/breath layer, last week we dove into manomaya kosha our mental layer and that brings us to the 4th kosha. Vijnanamaya kosha. Our wisdom layer. Also sometimes called our intellectual self or sheath.  

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Transcript

Ep 197 

Vijnanamaya kosha: Wisdom body

We continue our exploration of the koshas this week with the 4th kosha. Vijnanamaya kosha is our wisdom body. The seat of our intellect.We strive for both wisdom and intellect and yet struggle to define them in practical ways. That’s our Work IN today. We’ll look at simple ways to tap into this wisdom layer of our selves to build awareness and resilience on our journey into our true self.

Welcome back to our series on the koshas. So far we've discussed Annamaya, our physical body layer, pranamaya kosha our energetic/breath layer, last week we dove into manomaya kosha our mental layer and that brings us to the 4th kosha. Vijnanamaya kosha. Our wisdom layer. Also sometimes called our intellectual self or sheath.  

In our discussion we’ve been looking at the koshas not as solid opaque layers or sheaths but more as veils that are translucent and permeable. And I like that approach for practical understanding because for this particular kosha, our wisdom and intellect can be understood as more of a filter of what we see both within ourselves and how we see the world. 

Vijnana can be translated as “special knowledge” and as we’ve learned maya is “illusion”.

I’ve had many discussions with my yoga colleagues about the practical meaning of this kosha. How it shows up in regular people and how we guide students and can tap into it to deepen our physical yoga practice, to shift the nervous system, or simply become a better person. 

I think in terms of understanding this kosha it’s important to bring the concepts of wisdom and intellect into the real world. Because this kosha does not mean we HAVE those things fully formed and ready for us to use. As anyone who lives in this world and watched the local news knows. 

I see this kosha not as a fully formed thing but as an active and interactive piece of ourselves and as such we can look at it as our own witness. An analytical witness to our physical body, energetic and emotional body and of course all of our thoughts in our mental layer. In the most practical sense it is our filter. 

Having a filter is important. A filter gives us some kind of control for what comes in and what goes out. This is the place that lets us notice things going on inside of us. This is the part of us that rephrases our mean girl thoughts into socially acceptable comments. This is the part of us that is less present in social media trolls because of the lack of human connection.

Vijnanmaya kosha is the key to self awareness and personal growth. Without it we’d never question our own thoughts, actions or beliefs. We activate it every time we notice something. About anything really, not only stuff that’s happening inside us. This kosha is where we observe. It’s our witness seat.

Ideally we would be able to do that witnessing and observing without judgement, bias, competition or expectation. And perhaps those of us who’ve already reached enlightenment can. But for the rest of us lowly human beings it is a work in progress because vijnanamaya kosha is also where our inner critic and judge can live quite happily tearing us apart from the inside out. We have a tendency to use our intellect, our own brand of “special knowledge” not for the greater good, not for our own self development and growth, not to better our relationships with others and the world, but to keep ourselves safe. 

This is the voice that says “no, you can’t do that.” And “who do you think you are to want that?” That nasty voice that criticizes and judges everything we do and think and say as not good enough, not valuable, not smart enough. And this very negative side of our filter keeps us small and ultimately “safe”. 

You can probably see where this kosha already overlaps with our mental and emotional layers. Our witness observes our thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations and then decides what is true. Those things in turn become more permanent beliefs about ourselves or they get thrown out. 

Until we notice this noticing talent that we have, until we let ourselves step back as an objective witness, we don’t really have any reason to question those thoughts, feelings, emotions or sensations, do we? 

I think even though this is the 4th kosha, it’s really the key to all of them because without it we wouldn't really discover any of the others. This ability to withdraw and observe from above is uniquely human.

According to this great website called yogapedia vijnanamaya kosha is more than mere perception. This is a place of more subtle knowledge, intuition and discernment. 

So maybe it’s misleading to think of this kosha as purely our observational witness seat. A place that’s completely without judgement. After all when we call a witness it is either to defend or prosecute a particular point of view.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe vijnanamaya kosha as more like a lifeguard chair at a beach or a pool. Lifeguards sit up high so they can get a good view, a different perspective. They have special knowledge based on their experience that we may or may not also know. That knowledge gives them skills. Their tall chair lets them see much farther than we could from our lounge chair. There’s an element of comfort to the rest of us knowing that the lifeguard is up there keeping an eye on things. Watching out for sharks or rip tides and also we trust that they have the skills to save us if we get into trouble.

In a yoga context, this lifeguard layer (the wisdom layer) is associated with our 3rd eye Ajna the 6th chakra. Energetically this is how we see ourselves and the world. It makes sense that we cultivate the skills not only to see the truth of what is happening in and around us but also the intuition and discernment to choose the right action to take. 

The lifeguard that blows the whistle constantly soon is ignored. And a lifeguard that falls asleep is just as useless. We need attention, awareness, intuition and discernment.

Intuition and discernment are excellent skills to uncover as we make our way toward bliss and discovering our true selves.

They are both beautiful things. I know for myself in times of greater stress intuition is drowned out in favor of protection and survival. Energetically those are very heavy to our subtle body. They can weigh us down and it can be so tempting to turn away from inner wisdom in favor of external validation.  We’re raised to seek answers outside ourselves. Trained at an early age to ignore and override our gut feelings in favor of politeness, in order to fit in and to be socially acceptable. We’ve literally learned to turn a blind eye to ourselves. So is it any wonder that now we are internally blind. 

The good news is that once we lift the veil, remove our blinders we can turn our attention inward, to the body, the breath, our thoughts and emotions. Where our attention goes awareness follows. 

What does one find when we step up onto that lifeguard chair? Just like any beach that’s been neglected for a while, at first there might be quite a bit of trash that needs to be collected and thrown away. One might find a lot of thoughts, emotions and beliefs that don’t actually belong to you anymore. One might also find a hyper critical judge squatting in your beach house.As we discussed in the episode on our thoughts, we may have spent our lifetime believing every thought that pops into our head. If that’s one of our habits then starting with Byron Katy’s questions will be helpful. Simply asking if something is true will get the observational ball rolling. 

One might think that the presence of this layer of self always guarantees that we’ll act with wisdom.  Wouldn’t that be great if this piece of our subtle body made it so all people would behave in moral and ethical ways? Hold a moment while I laugh my ass off. 

What it really means is that we’re all capable of behaving in moral and ethical ways, we’re capable of thoughtful discernment, we’re capable of clarity and trusting our intuition. And the prize for stepping back into this self more fully is a deeper sense of connectedness, not only with yourself but also with others. There’s nothing like a little self discovery to boost empathy for others. 

We might also think about this kosha as the director's chair in our own personal blockbuster. We can watch ourselves acting as the star in every scene or as a supporting character or even as the villain. And we get to watch in real time and look over the videographer's shoulder through the camera lens and see how our life looks on screen. We might have become attached to a particular filter but we have the power to change that filter and find a different experience.

In this analogy we get to choose the parts of our own character development that we keep and what hits the cutting room floor. It’s a powerful place to be. And with great power comes great responsibility. We are always collecting new “special knowledge” that may change how we see the world and that we can use to help us see the truth and discern our next best choices. Even when we cut things that we no longer need for our story, those things still contribute value to who we are.

The bhagavad gita says In these practices no effort made is lost, nor are there any adverse affects. Even a little practice (of this dharma) protects one from great fear. Bhagavad Gita 2.40 Sri Satchidananda.

Basically what this means is we can’t really do this kind of self discovery wrong. And it’s never too late to start.

Thanks for listening! Next time we’ll get into our 5th kosha the Bliss body!

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Thanks again everyone and as always stop working out and start working IN.   

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