This was originally written in August 2018 during my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training at Purusha Yoga Studio in San Francisco, CA. For you non-yoga nerds ;-)) kosha's are the 5 layers of our human existence -- from the gross physical body to the more subtle levels of our being. Read on as my analogy of the 5 koshas takes on a non-human form.
Making a Cup of Tea as a Journey through the Five Koshas
We start with our tea kettle. Do you see it? It is an electric kettle. Check out the material. Stainless steel. It has a wide base. It fits 1.7 liters of water. It has a plug for the wall socket. We know this kettle will eventually break, fall away, depreciate.
We accept the tea kettle's impermanence.
The tea kettle is our Anamaya kosha.
Next, we take the tea kettle, open 'er up and fill her all the way with water. We see the water swirl around in the kettle. We notice the sound of the rushing water on the stainless steel encasing like a waterfall rushing down a mountain. The water is our Pranamaya kosha.
Now, we plug the base of our kettle into the wall socket, connecting the physical body of our kettle to the mental intelligence of the kettle's technology with the pranayamic energy of the water safely inside.
As we push our finger down on the trigger, the kettle ignites.
We hear a light hissing noise upon our touch, triggering the software that starts the boil by our command.
The software of our kettle is our Manamaya kosha.
Life energy swirls inside of our kettle and POP - with steam pouring out of the top, our kettle intuitively turns off, realizing that the water has reached the appropriate temperature.
This more subtle form of intelligence that our tea kettle embodies is also known as our Vijnamaya kosha.
From here, we see the hand of God pour the water into a mug and pop a tea bag inside the mug.
The tea bag is swirled around, infusing the water with it's sweet leaves.
Likewise, the water is permeating the tea leaves.
It is symbiotic, reciprocal. All elements have merged as one.
The tea leaves are earth.
The kettle's boiling abilities is the fire.
The water is well, water.
The steam that wafts off the top of the tea, disintegrating into the rest of the Universe is the element of air.
And as you bring your lips up to the mug, for a moment your ether merges with the ether of the tea. And thus you merge as one with the tea.
Cheers.
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