From the past blog, you now know that Hatha Yoga is what we’re all doing at our yoga classes. It is the type of yoga that focuses on the body, using different poses (asanas) and some breathing exercises (pranayama). Taking good care of our bodies is important in yoga philosophy; our body is our vehicle for our spirit/soul. It’s the only one we get, at least this lifetime.

Something I find very interesting and compelling about yoga is that our being is perceived as five interconnected layers. This viewpoint emphasizes the fact that we aren’t just physical.

Our physical body is one of these layers, the part of us that is made up of dense material, bones, muscles, organs, skin etc. It’s the part that we can touch. It’s obvious.

Our energy body is another of the layers, it is the part that is unseen, not tangible by touch, but something we know is there. We can tell when we lose our energy or when we feel high energy. Our energy body is connected with our breathing. We all know that when we die our physical bodies are still intact (unless a terrible accident has maimed us or we’ve had parts removed surgically), but our breath is not there anymore. The breath is what animates us and gives us the energy to move the bones and body around.

Another of the layers is our psycho-emotional body. We all think and feel emotions, but they aren’t tangible either, we can’t put our finger on them, but we are greatly influenced by them in our lives.

There is a part of us that is able to observe and watch what we think and feel, how we breathe, what sensations are going on in our bodies. This layer of being is called the witness body.

Then there is a layer of us, that in deep stillness and quiet, can perceive and experience how part of us is dense and solid and part of us is very spacious and ethereal. When we encounter this part we are relieved of our pain, and we sense our inter- connectedness with everything else that exists.

These five layers are what make us a whole human being according to the yogis. We are actually multi-dimensional beings!

When we practice yoga we are influencing all these layers. The intention is to keep all the parts of our being in harmony, to unify, and to increase our awareness of our inter-connectedness. We start by looking and sensing inside ourselves. We begin connecting to all our physical parts- not just the bones and muscles, but the different systems of the body, our circulatory system, nervous system, respiratory system, immune system, digestive system etc. We notice how they are in communication with one another and work cooperatively for the good of the whole.

This approach improves our health and well-being tremendously and adds to our understanding of how linked we are to everything else in our lives.

We can also look outside ourselves to see this inter-connectedness. We can see the family systems at work, the community systems at work. Think of the City of Petaluma as the body, and all the streets and thoroughfares as the circulatory system, the waste management company as the digestive system, the water department as the immune system, the community of people the respiratory system, etc. We know the same thing holds true here, as it does in our bodies. We aspire to have good communication happening and all parts working cooperatively to keep things running smoothly. This is why it seems so grand to have mainstream USA becoming enamored with yoga. What could be better than increasing awareness of the unity of all life and practicing to keep things in good health and harmony? The ancient system has great wisdom to offer and we’re just scratching the surface.

More to come in future blogs.