Soulful Healing

Hi everyone!  It’s been waaaaay too long since my last post.  Needless to say, life has been really busy here.  Regardless, I’m thrilled to be back here at my keyboard!  I’d like to spend the next several weeks exploring the connection between body and soul.  Here in the West, it has become very popular to discuss any manner of “mind-body-spirit” topics.  It is good that we finally recognize there is more to life than our thoughts and our physical experience.  Yet, in yoga, there are five layers of being described:  Body, Energy/Breath, Mind/Emotions, Intellect, and Spirit.  The yogis call these layers koshas.  These five aspects of our experience must be in harmony with one another in order for us to be fully alive and healthy.  For example, if one is physically fit but an emotional wreck, that is not a balanced existence.  Or if one is intellectually astute but is physically unhealthy, they are not living in wholeness.  In other words, we cannot separate any one aspect of our Being from another.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll give you some food for thought on each of these koshas.

Annamayakosha

Yes, I know, these are long words with potentially unfamiliar pronunciations.  So here’s some help:  AHN-uh-MY-uh-KOH-shuh.  This is the  physical, anatomical body and represents the outermost layer of our being.  With it, we touch, taste, see, and hear the world around us.  This body is the container for the other four layers of our experience.  When our other aspects of being (energy, emotions, thoughts, spirit) are out of balance, they can negatively affect our bodies.  Think about how stress lowers your immune defenses, leaving you prone to illness.  Have you ever heard yourself saying, “But I can’t get sick right now, I have too much to do!!”  That “too much” just might be part of the problem…  Especially here in the U.S., we are obsessed with bigger, better, faster, more.  Yet the body has limitations and needs to be respected and soulfully cared for, especially as we get older.  Youth generally has physical energy to spare and we frequently miss that as we age.  But comparing ourselves now to some past version of the same means that we miss out on the NOW.

One thing I love about yoga is that many of us come to a yoga asana practice with the goal of becoming physically healthier, and then realize it is so much more.  I became interested in yoga therapy when I started to see the emotional benefits that yoga was having in my life.  Increased calm, less tension, steadier responses to stressful events.  So the connection between our bodies and our other layers of being goes both ways.  We care for our breath, emotions, thoughts, & spirit, and our bodies will thank us.  If we care for our bodies, it will be easier to manage the other aspects of our experience.  Even while we seek the guidance of our souls, we mustn’t forget that we are still living in a physical world that takes a toll on the body.  Caring for our bodies is done on many levels.  Do you get enough sleep each night?  Do you eat foods that nourish your body (versus just tantalizing your taste-buds)?  Do you drink enough water?

In his book Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar says, “To be spiritual, one must not deny or forget the body. Throughout the journey to the spiritual goal, the body must be kept active.”  I recently did a presentation on this topic in the context of Christianity.  It is the religious tradition with which I’m most familiar and I believe these concepts can be explored from the perspective of other religions or schools of thought.  In my research for that presentation, the Bible verse that struck me most was, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? … Therefore honor God with your body.” – Corinthians 6: 19-20 (New International Version).  Regardless of your faith background, I think it is helpful to consider whether we are treating our bodies in a sacred way.  It is a gift and its health enables us to do the work of our spirit in this world.  And so, as you go about your life tasks this week, consider how you might bring some soul back into the ways you treat your body.  As C.S. Lewis says, “You don’t have a soul.  You are a Soul.  You have a body.”  Have a blissful week!