The five sheaths

   The three bodies of the jiva were previously named the physical or gross body, the subtle body and the causal body. Now the same three bodies are being described as five sheaths covering the atma or self within. The gross body is the first or outermost sheath. It is named annamayakosha or the sheath of food. The subtle body is made up of three sheaths, praanamayakosha or the sheath of vital air, manomaykosha or the sheath of the mind, and vijnaanamayakosha or the sheath of the intellect. These sheaths have to be negated one by one in order to realize the self.

The sheath of food

   This is the physical body, known also as the gross body. It is born of food, sustained by food, and dies if there is no food. It is made up of skin, flesh, blood, and excreta. It is impure. It is always undergoing change. It has a birth and a death. It is an object of knowledge like a pot. So it cannot be the atma which, according to the upanishads, is pure, unborn, eternal, changeless, and the knower of all changes and all objects.

   The body has limbs such as hands, feet, etc. One is able to live even if any of these limbs is damaged and cannot function. So the body cannot be the self which is devoid of parts and is homogeneous. It is by the light of consciousness, which is the very nature of the self, that all the limbs, the sense organs and the mind are able to function. The Kathopanishad says that it is not by the vital airs such as praana, apaana, etc., that creatures live, but by the atma which enlivens them. The vital airs themselves are insentient, like the physical body.

   Because of ignorance the human being identifies himself with his body. When a person says �I am tall, or short, or stout, or lean, etc.� he looks upon his body as himself. Such a person is not even aware that he has a subtle body which is different from the gross body and which does not die when the physical body dies, but goes to other worlds and is again born on this earth in a new body. The person who has acquired intellectual knowledge about the nature of the self from the scriptures knows that there is a subtle body which goes to other worlds and is again born on this earth in a new physical body. In normal worldly transactions he identifies himself with his physical body. But when he performs  vedic rituals such as yajnas for attaining heaven, he does not identify himself with his physical body, because he knows that the physical body cannot go to heaven and that it is only the subtle body that goes to heaven after death. So he then looks upon the subtle body as himself. The man of realization, however, knows that he is not either of these bodies, but is the atma which is identical with Brahman which is devoid of all the three limitations of time, place and other objects.  (See Panchadasi of Swami Vidyaranya--3.35, 36, 37�Being all-pervasive, Brahman is not limited by space. Being eternal, it is not limited by time. Since all objects in the universe are merely superimposed on Brahman, Brahman is not limited by any object, just as a rope is not limited by the illusory snake superimposed on it).

   Therefore the aspirant is exhorted to give up identification with the body-mind complex and fix his mind on Brahman. As long as the scholar does not give up his identification with his body, mind, etc., there can be no question of his release from transmigratory existence even if he is most proficient in Vedanta. Mere intellectual knowledge that he is not the body, etc., but the atma is not sufficient; it has to become an actual experience. Just as one does not identify oneself with one�s shadow or the reflection of the body in a mirror, etc., or with his own body seen in a dream, one should not identify oneself with his living body. Identification with the body is the root cause of all sorrows and of repeated births and deaths.

   The sheath of vital air will be taken up in the next article.

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