We as humans are comprised of layers, from our bodies to our breath to our mind to our wisdom to our bliss. These layers are not separate. They do not stand alone. They are interwoven like indigenous Guatemalan tapestries. Each thread is a journey of its own and also an integral part of the whole masterpiece. We can begin with the most dense outer layer of our physical being, our annamayakosha and be lead into an intricate system of energy called our prana, or our life force, or that which enables the body to move and the mind to think. It is this intelligence that coordinates our senses, and the perceptible manifestation of our higher selves. This is our pranamayakosha. 

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The koshas, like the kleshas, can be considered veils, but rather than veils of ignorance, the koshas are more like veils of enlightenment. More commonly the koshas are referred to as sheaths, or coverings of which there are five. The koshas are the understandings of ourselves as dense physical beings all the way to infinite, ethereal, spiritual beings. The visual of an onion can be helpful, the most outer layer being our physical bodies, our bones, and our organs.

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Our culture likes to ignore death, we shove it into our back pockets, disregard it, dismiss it, and generally do not deal with it until we are faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis or an open heart surgery. I am in no way downplaying the hardship and pain of death. I am not justifying tragedy or injustice. What I am contemplating is the consideration that death could be a spiritual birth and birth could be a spiritual death of sorts. When we remove the obstacles and distractions of the physical, our souls can expand past all sense perceptions and unconscious barriers. Therefore, death could be considered life's greatest gift.

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Dvesa is the distaste. It is the disliking of people, places, things, feelings, and so on. When we are in the delusion of dvesa we are usually running away, hiding, ignoring, and numbing. Dvesa and raga, or liking and disliking, are addictive, and they both hold the immense power of deception. The justifications made in the name of liking and disliking, loving and hating, agreeing and disagreeing have caused a colosal amount of heartache and more blood shed than we could ever come to terms with. 

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Liking things and experiencing pleasure is not the problem. And while it may feel like yoga shuns desire as the root of all evil, I don’t believe the desire is the actual problem. The problem is the belief that I need the desire to be ok or to experience joy. The problem is when my mind and my life become a slave to my desires. The poison is the mental dialogue, the external manipulation, and the unconscious behaviors that possess our daily direction and interactions. The problem is missing the sunset because I am consumed with getting to the perfect location to see it.

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Your ego is your sense of I am-ness. When we don’t know who we are it becomes commonplace for us to believe we are everything we are not. So while it is necessary for me to survive, I need to care for myself and my vehicle (my body), it is quite uneccessary for me to ride the roller coaster of good enough or not good enough, based on society’s made up hierarchy of value. How often is the first question we ask or are asked, upon meeting a human, what do you do? Then we either value or devalue ourselves or another depending upon that answer.

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When we forget or don’t know that we are spirit incarnated, gifted with our very own magical temples (our bodies) to explore the entirety of earth as a magical temple itself, it is easy to choose convenience over conscious. Mostly, we are not even doing the choosing. We are playing out a program molded by the hands of power and greed of which belong to those who also wear the veils of Avidya.

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Right off the bat I am turned off by the interpretation of pure and impure as it has a tendency to dance with morality and I am not about to jump into that mosh pit of posers preaching prescribed religion that doles out sin, fear, and guilt like candy on halloween. What might be more helpful is to consider impurity as compulsion. So the question to ask myself then is not wether I am speaking, acting, or being pure or impure, but wether I am speaking, acting, or being out of compulsion. And if I am, I am wrapped in the veil of Avidya. I am forgetting myself to be like somebody else. I am lost, drunk, under the influence of others in their own compulsions.

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We think we have today, that we are promised tomorrow and guaranteed next year. This is the veil of avidya, it is like our daily dose of delusion that suppresses our appetite to be alive in this brand spankin new moment. We throw away our precious moment to moments with an air of boredom and a snicker of arrogance that diminishes the aliveness of this right now. This right now of life is the permanence. It is always the only space in which we have to live. This right now is the outlet, the portal, the gateway, the ride, the slide, and the womb of creation herself. It is here we can hear earths heart beat in tune with our own in tune with yours, with his, and with hers. Only here can we hear the magical symphony that nature plays for us and if we let her, with us.

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Avidya is the illusory veil draped over most of humanity. When we can trust innately that we are valuable, we can experience being that way. We can ride the waves of tragedy that are guaranteed to accompany this human experience without fear of failure, in fact, when we know who we really are, we gain the freedom to fall. We will face dark, dis-ease, and death and when we do, we have the power to remember is not permanent. It’s all moving, it’s all changing, it’s all passing, all of time. It’s when we grip onto the change, when we grasp upon our yesterdays and claw upon our tomorrows that we endure more suffering than necessary.

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