More Than Flesh: The Five Bodies in Siddha Teaching
You are not only your physical body. Guruji explains the five layers the yogis described, from flesh to bliss, and the sixth he calls the most important.
After years of practice, Guruji describes a moment of recognition: “Then I came to know what the body is. The body is not just the physical body. There are several bodies within it.”
The yogic tradition calls these layers the koshas. Guruji simply calls them bodies, and he describes each one in practical, everyday terms.
1. Annamaya: the physical body
Anna means food. This is the body that eats and works, sees and hears. Everything we do through it, Guruji says, is “the karma of the body”. It is real and it deserves care, but it is the outermost layer, not the whole of you.
2. Pranamaya: the body of life-force
Right alongside the physical body is the pranamaya body, the body of prana. Its influence extends beyond the skin, and Guruji calls it the aura. In some people it is weak, in others strong; it rises and falls with how we look after ourselves and how we think.
You should never neglect it. With practice that energy starts to grow. That is the strength of sadhana.
3. Manomaya: the mind
The mind is where we weigh things up, and Guruji’s observation about it is very practical: “When you keep going ‘should I, shouldn’t I’, you get confused, and what you meant to do is delayed day after day. When you say ‘let’s just do it’, success comes.”
He also teaches discernment with the senses that feed the mind. “We were given two ears. Take only what you need, the good, and let the rest go out of the other ear.” If someone pours negativity in front of you: “Speak something good, or get up and leave. Then you are safe.” The same holds for the eyes. “It is not about shutting our eyes. But what do I need? Fill your eyes with the good message.”
4. Jnanamaya: the body of knowledge
When you first meet someone, you see only their outer form. After two or three days of conversation you begin to see their qualities. Knowledge, in Guruji’s sense, is that deeper seeing, applied to everything. And it must be cultivated: “If the intellect becomes stunted, knowledge does not grow at all.”
5. Anandamaya: the body of bliss
The innermost of the five is bliss. Guruji describes it as a choice that becomes a habit: “I did this, and I am happy today. From now on I should make this my habit. Why get caught in confusion?”
From that settled joy, he says, concentration grows, and then confidence. With confidence, “whatever you do, you keep succeeding”.
The sixth: the karma body
Beyond the five, Guruji speaks of a sixth, the karma body or causal body, and he calls it “very important”. Among crores of people, he says, “the work I do, no one else does. The work you do, no one else does. Each has their own karma. That is the karma body.” It carries what each of us has come into this life to work through. (Read more in Why No Guru Can Cut Your Karma.)
Why it matters
Seen this way, spiritual practice is not an escape from the body but a maturing of every layer of it. In the deeper stages of the Siddha path, Guruji says, these bodies are cleansed and matured one by one, and only then do the higher experiences become possible.
That work begins simply. Every program at Spiritual Conscious starts with Shaktipat Deeksha from Guruji, followed by practice at home: five minutes or an hour, done completely.
Guruji’s words are translated from Kannada, from his conversation on Manasa Sarovara with Gaurish Akki Studio.
