How does bliss quotient help a person?

Then finally we have the anandamaya kosha, the sheath around the soul or causal body, associated with a yet finer level of consciousness. It is the sheath of happiness, joy and bliss, and its food is joy. This kosha is beyond knowledge and experience, beyond the mind. It is about ‘being’, where we are bliss.

It is the subtlest of the five sheaths. On our journey we come across various spiritual stages offering us various levels of experiences, exposing our consciousness to more and more. We express joy at the level of the other four sheaths depending upon the resonance arising from the anandamaya kosha.

Even this fifth kosha is not the end of the journey, although sat-chit-anand is considered to be such a high state. During the spiritual journey all these sheaths are transcended. And this transcendence is another way of describing the journey of human evolution, the expansion of consciousness.

All the koshas have their inherent limitations, however subtle they may be. They are all interwoven, in fact, and not like the wooden Russian matryoshka dolls, one inside the next in a strictly sequential fashion. During meditation, we often have thoughts.

Based on the kinds of thoughts we have, we can deduce the koshas where we are more or less restricted. So, regarding the alignment between the subtle bodies and koshas, we can say that: Ahankar, ego, is the subtle body of willpower and vitality, and is most closely associated with the pranamaya kosha,

Manas, the thinking mind, is most closely associate with the manomaya kosha, and Buddhi, intellect, is most closely associated with the vignanamaya kosha, the wisdom sheath.

During the spiritual journey all these sheaths are transcended. And this transcendence is another way of describing the journey of human evolution, the expansion of consciousness.

What about chit, consciousness? Remember that consciousness is the canvas upon which the other three subtle bodies play out their functions, so it is associated with all three koshas of the subtle bodies – pranayama, manomaya and vignanamaya. But consciousness is also there in every organ and every cell of the physical body, and at the other end of the spectrum it is also closest to the soul. So where is it?

Consciousness is everywhere. In a fully realised Yogi, consciousness is a 360-degree affair, flowing wherever it is needed in the moment. Consciousness spans all the koshas of the human being.

Even if we are not fully realised, and not aware of the full reach of our consciousness, that is only because we have not yet expanded it across the full spectrum of subconsciousness and superconsciousness. The koshas are another way to describe this spectrum of consciousness that we expand into as we go further and further on our journey.

Yoga is for this – a set of practices that refine our energy centers or chakras, refine the sheaths or koshas, and help us traverse through the various levels of consciousness. Each one of us displays a consciousness based on its play within the complex web of these five sheaths, which are purified through the practice of meditation and cleaning. This purifying process is greatly accelerated by pranahuti. When we are able to harmonise our consciousness across all the five sheaths, we will see joy in life flowering on its own.