Page 255 - The Path of Grace

APPENDIX I - KOSAS
and body which haunts the philosophers of the West. The need to integrate a concern for the body in an over all program to develop the mind is obvious: however in certain systems of Yoga the importance given to body development has over shadowed their concern for spiritual union with the real self. It is to be understood that the physical body or the Sthula Sarira is the Annamaya Kosa, while the subtle body or Sukshma Sarira is the Pranamaya Kosa, Manomaya Kosa and Vijnanamaya Kosa and the causal or Karana Sarira is the Anandamaya Kosa. It is the wisdom of the Seers of the Upanishads that enabled them to comprehend the Anna, Prana, Manah, Vijnana and Ananda as forms of Brahman or Ultimate reality or expressions of the same Divine Consciousness.
It is customary in schools of Vedanta to consider these as superimpositions on the Self, while in fact they are the ways of expression of the Consciousness/Self itself for realizing its potential. It is also considered necessary to break these sheaths to know the real Self by several systems of Yoga and Vedanta. In certain systems it was considered
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