Prāṇamaya Kosha, The Five Hindrances (Part 2) and Ralph Waldo Emerson
January 12, 2025
8 min read
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Newsletter
{Body}
The prāṇamaya kosha
This is Part 2 of 5.
In yoga, koshas are the five layers (or sheaths) of your being, progressing from the physical to the intangible and increasingly subtle.
The second layer is the prāṇamaya kosha, or "energy sheath." If your annamaya kosha (physical body) is the hardware, then the prāṇamaya kosha is the electricity that powers it — the vital force that animates and sustains you.
Picture the atoms of your physical body like tree branches waving in the wind. Without the tree, the wind would remain invisible. Without the wind, the tree would be still and lifeless. Similarly, without your annamaya kosha, energy would remain invisible, and without energy, your body would just be an inert pile of dust.
In other words, it’s not just food and oxygen that keep your body alive — it’s the life force within them that does. Metabolism and digestion are a process of breaking apart molecules to extract the energy they carry, not the other way around.
The energy they extract then flows through pathways called nadis (energy channels), and converge at points known as chakras. If blood vessels are the tubes that carry oxygen to your cells, then nadis are the tubes that carry prāna to specific energy centers.
Clear pathways allow energy to move freely, promoting vitality and well-being, while blockages can result in fatigue, stress, and disease.
Of course, a functioning system requires more than just hardware and electricity, so stay tuned next week as we peel back the next layer to explore the manomaya kosha — the software directing energy where it’s needed.
{Mind}
Hindrances during meditation
This is Part 2 of 5.
During his life, the Buddha outlined various obstacles, stages, and revelations encountered on the Path to enlightenment.
In one of his well-known teachings, he describes "the Five Hindrances" — mental obstructions that block the development of one’s meditation practice (a critical vehicle for attaining enlightenment).
The second of these hindrances is known as Vyāpāda, or ill will, and it is just as common as last week’s Kāmacchanda.
Vyāpāda is when you sit down for meditation, close your eyes, and suddenly remember the snide comment someone made on your Facebook post. You replay it in your mind, dissecting it, feeling the sting of offense, your body reflexively tensing as you mentally rehearse clever comebacks you wish you’d delivered.
Or it’s when you find yourself irritated by something as small as a ticking clock, an itchy sweater, or the way your neighbor’s dog barks — disrupting your precious practice.
Vyāpāda is a psychic virus that feeds on the frustration, resentment, and anger it evokes from you. It replicates itself by pulling you into an emotional spiral, convincing you that you need to fix, punish, or eliminate whatever is disturbing your peace.
The Way Out begins by recognizing that ill will causes real harm, not only to those around you but to your own heart and mind.
After this is clearly acknowledged, whenever feelings of irritation or hostility arise in meditation, recognize them without judgment. Then, as an intentional practice, direct thoughts of kindness toward the person or situation that triggered your anger. This doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior; it means softening the grip of resentment in your heart.
Start with something simple:
“May I be at ease. May I be free from anger.”
“May they be happy. May they find peace.”
Of course, you have to mean what you think in order for the Vyāpāda antidote to kick in. If it’s just lip-service — if you’re just repeating the words without sincerity — nothing profound will happen.
{Soul}
Us humans like to fixate on the length of our lives — counting the years we’ve had and worrying about how many remain — as if purely extending our time on Earth somehow makes it more meaningful.
We also equate a deep life with volume of experiences. Apparently, the more countries you visit, fears you conquer, and desires you manifest, the more fulfilled you become.
What utter nonsense — depth of life has nothing to do with any of that. Depth of life is about presence, the degree to which you are fully here.
Here! Now!
I promise you: someone who is truly present while washing dishes or crying at a funeral or reading a newsletter experiences far more depth and meaning from life than someone who is distracted — even if that someone just summited Mt. Everest or won the lottery.
Stop worrying about how much time you have left. And stop fetishizing over what adventures will make your story more interesting. Those are the blinding lights causing you to overlook the very thing you seek: the recognition that your life is rich in and of itself — nothing else needed.
January 5, 2025
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