Part I: Chapter I / V

Division of Creation according to the Koshas

All beings from gods to man, as well as the other forms of life, including plants, are classified into five categories in relation to the preponderance of the one or the other of the faculties:

1. Purely cognitive beings, like Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, etc.

2. Beings endowed with mind-stuff: Indra and other deities, gods and goddesses, etc.

3. Beings endowed with pranic vibrations: Yakshas, Gandharbas and other spirits, etc.

4. Physical beings: Men, animals, birds, reptiles and insects, etc.
   
   The creatures endowed with physical bodies have all the five koshas or coverings in them in varying degrees of density (Anand-mai, Vigyan-mai, Mano-mai, Pran-mai and Anna-mai); while those endowed with pranic vibrations have but four koshas, dropping off Anna-mai. Similarly, creatures gifted with the mind-stuff have but three, dropping out Pran-mai as well, and again, cognitive beings have but two, namely Anand-mai and Vigyan-mai, as they are freed from the shackles of the mind, the pranas and the need for anna or foodstuff.
   
   There is thus a very close correspondence between the five primary elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether), of which the bodies are made, and the koshas or coverings. In fact, the koshas themselves are, more or less, the effective result of the five basic elements and endow creatures with the five faculties enumerated above.

5. The liberated soul (jivan mukta) has but a transparent veil of Anand-mai kosh. Spirit in its pure and unalloyed form is the creator, for all creation springs from it, and is sometimes known as Maya or Shabd Brahm. It is the self-effulgent light, self-existent, the causeless cause of everything visible and invisible.
   
   The spirit and God both are alike in their nature and essence, i.e., subtlety and bliss. This blissfulness is the very first offspring of the interaction of soul and Prakriti, and being the primal manifestation of the Godhood in the soul, remains the longest to the end in its fullness in spite of the other four covering enveloping it and bedimming its luster.
   
   Blissfulness being the essential and inseparable quality of the soul inheres in its very nature. This is why the searching soul ever feels restless, and feels terribly the loss of its essence in the mighty swirl of the world. This is why Christ emphatically declared:

Take heed that the Light which is in thee be not darkness.

St Luke 11:35

Having thus lost sight of the inner bliss, we try to find happiness in the worldly objects and take momentary pleasures as a synonym for true happiness but very soon get disillusioned. This leads to the innate quest for real happiness. It is the eternal quest in the human breast, and from outward, ephemeral and evanescent pleasures one is forced to turn inwards in search of true happiness. This leads on to the beginning of the various yoga systems, one and all, according to the needs of the individual aspirants.

1. Persons with gross tendencies, animal instincts, and interested only in body-building process and developing the Anna-mai Atma, successfully take recourse to Hatha Yoga.

2. Persons afflicted with wind or gastric troubles, due to obsessions with pran vayu in their system, can combat these with the help of Pran Yoga.

3. Persons with Mano-mai Atma in the ascendant, and suffering from mal, avaram and vikshep, i.e., mental impurities, ignorance and modulations of the mind, can with the help of Raja Yoga conquer and pierce through the Mano-mai Kosh.

4. Persons gifted with a strong intellectual bent of mind are ever engaged in finding the why and wherefore of things. Such aspirants take to the path of Vigyan or Jnana Yoga.

5. Those who are anxious to escape from the world and all that is worldly and seek bliss for its own sake have the path of Anand Yoga or the yoga of True Happiness, called the Sehaj Yoga.

In the Sehaj Yoga, the aspirant does not have to undergo any of the rigorous disciplines characteristic of the other yogas. He must have a sincere and ceaseless yearning for the end of all ends, the goal of all goals, not content with a mere mastery of his physical and mental powers. And when there is such a longing, sooner or later he would find, as Ramakrishna found Totapuri, an adept to put him in touch with the vital life current within, and the current by its own force and attractions will draw him up without any excessive struggle or effort on his part. It is this that makes it in a sense the easiest of all yogas and thus it is often called Sehaj Yoga (the effortless Yoga). It can be practiced with equal ease by a child as well by an old man; by a woman as well as a man; by the intellectually gifted and ingenious as well as the simple hearted; by the sanyasin as well as the householder. It consists in attuning the soul to the spiritual current ever vibrating within, hence it is known as the Surat Shabd Yoga, or the Yoga of the Sound Current.

With these preliminary remarks we are now in a position to discuss the subject of yoga with its various essentials as taught by Patanjali, to understand the part that each plays, the technique involved therein, how each step works out, and how far the yogic exercises help practically in achieving the desired result – liberation of soul from the bondage of mind and matter – so as to realize its own potential nature as distinct from body-consciousness, and then to rise into Cosmic Consciousness and further on into Super-Cosmic Consciousness. It is the freed soul that has to experience awareness at varying levels, from realization of the self to that of Cosmic and ultimately to that of Super-Cosmic or God.