‘Use subtle energies to reach higher realms’

So, the next sheath of consciousness is the even subtler manomaya kosha, the mental sheath that makes use of the mind, manas, and the five cognitive sense organs – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. It is vaster than the previous two and is all about mental processes– thoughts, ideas, reason, logic, contemplation, feelings, dreams, hopes, and the feelings of good and bad, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain.

While the manomaya kosha is largely dormant in other animals, it is well developed in humans. This kosha defines our human species, along with the heart, and is the bridge between human life and divine life.

By developing this kosha, we are able to arrive at our own conclusions. We exercise it by questioning, experiencing, observing, analyzing, exploring and inferring. We need direct experience in anything we do, including spirituality, for our manomaya kosha to remain functional and healthy. Will our hunger be satisfied by someone else eating? Will we grow mentally by someone else attending college on our behalf?

The manomaya kosha grows even when we make mistakes. When we make efforts to analyse things, we sometimes come to wrong conclusions, but that is how we learn, by exercising our manomaya kosha.

It is important to remember this in the education of children. When an education system is based solely on rote learning, we are not helping children develop this sheath.

Individual contentment and true peace are possible only when we are freed from the demands of these mental disturbances. And when more and more of us join in this ennobling endeavor, individual peace will lead to world peace.

Even as adults, we will also remain stuck if we only read, watch videos and go on quoting other people, no matter how profound the knowledge, because it is all borrowed knowledge. It must be applied practically and experienced for it to have any benefit.

The manomaya kosha develops when it is challenged by day-to-day events. That is why family life is good for the evolution of consciousness. There are challenges every day, and consciousness evolves when the manomaya kosha is challenged. So, running away from society and problems does not help us grow.

Struggles and sufferings benefit this kosha, as they challenge us to find solutions, experience things for ourselves, accept and move forward. They help us if we accept them graciously, and they change our lives instantly, with a quantum leap into a higher level of consciousness, if we accept them cheerfully and with gratitude.

But the manomaya kosha can also develop logic to defend our actions, whether right or wrong, justifying our anger, inactions, lethargy, envy, jealousy and mistakes. When it is not pure, this kosha will condescend to any extent to justify moral turpitude for the sake of fulfilling desires, resorting to unjust means. If we succumb to a compromised mind, we compromise what is vital for our evolution.

A Heartfulness trainer can easily set such tendencies right in a few sessions by diverting the flow of thoughts towards the next chakra, the seat of the soul or atma chakra. Over a period of time, and with practice, our thoughts are regulated so that we remain in a state of acceptance. The Heartfulness practices of meditation on specific points act as a boon in refining this troublesome sheath.

Individual contentment and true peace are possible only when we are freed from the demands of these mental disturbances. And when more and more of us join in this ennobling endeavor, individual peace will lead to world peace.

It is the manomaya kosha that offers us the most satisfaction as well the greatest discontent or restlessness. When unrefined and heavy, this sheath adds to our confusion and disasters. When its focus is in the higher realms, it helps us perform extraordinary mental marvels, including the much talked-about astral travels.