What’s more important – your hamstrings or your liver? Panchamaya (koshas) model
My yoga teacher likes to ask: what is more important – your hamstrings or your liver? The question is not meant to undermine the importance of the structural issues that we might have but rather to remind us that our bodies are much more complex. As yoga teachers, we often become so focused on the anatomy (muscles, joints, bones) that we forget about other important processes that make our bodies function smoothly. Sure, we don’t think much about the heart, liver, or lungs while they quietly do their job, but the moment one of them starts to malfunction (in ourselves or those close to us), our whole world turns upside down.
Through centuries, the yoga tradition has accumulated a vast body of knowledge on ways to relieve human suffering. However, true knowledge does not lie in mastering difficult postures or complicated techniques. It lies in developing an insight and intimate knowledge of how our systems function and learning the tools to fine-tune them when necessary.
Our systems are complex and multidimensional. The way my teacher, Gary Kraftsow, puts it: “I’ve never seen a lumbar spine come into my office without a liver attached to it. Or a liver come in without an attitude.” Therefore, if we are planning to be vibrant, healthy human beings, we need to consider all the components that make up our systems: physical structure, physiological processes, the content of our minds, our ideas and attitudes toward our surroundings, and our sense of longing for connection to something greater then ourselves.
The Panchamaya model (also called the Five Koshas Model) is a way to organize our thinking when it comes to different layers of our systems. Everything you’ve ever learned about yoga fits somewhere within the Panchamaya Model and is meant to serve a practitioner on one level or another. I find that sometimes the five koshas are presented as something too “out there,” while in reality, they just describe the yogic view of how things work within our bodies and minds. The panchamaya model is extremely useful (I would even say necessary) when we are trying to understand what’s happening within ourselves or our students. Here is a quick overview of the five dimensions of the human system.
Would you like to get a handout with a quick overview of the Five dimensions of the human system and the main yogic tools (practices) that give us access to each one of those dimensions?
Sequence Wiz members get access to PDF handouts of brief educational articles on how to design yoga practices and use yoga to work with the body, energy, and mind.
Use the template of the Panchamaya Model to reflect on what your students need in their yoga practice right now and what kind of support we can give them that fits this moment.
Use the template of the Panchamaya Model to envision different kinds of practices for each layer of the system.
Interesting. There has to be some kind of work to be made not in the physical part of the body, to “open it”.
Some of us work hard stretching the body but the change never happens or it’s small.
Maby the answer is working somewhere else…
This is a great visual you have created. I need visuals like this to see the whole, and how they relate. I ordered Gary’s book. Thank you.
Loved the post immensely! After coming across the humorous title, hamstring versus liver, I got this… the kosha of the serious content!
Thank you so much!