Page 300 - The Path of Grace

PATH OF GRACE
kosa or physical sheath (literally, food sheath). Inside it is the Pranamaya-kosa or sheath made of Prana (energy), which "fills the physical sheath as air fills a bellows." Inside the Prana sheath is the Manomaya-kosa or mind sheath. Next is the Vijnanamaya-kosa or sheath of intellect, and last is the Anandamaya-kosa or sheath of bliss. Inside all five of them, as if sheltered in a cave is the Atman. It may be alright to think of the sheaths as one cover beneath the other, but that is not true. It is only a way of analyzing that led to this description. These kosas interpenetrate and when the purification process is complete the inner in the sense the finest kosa namely the Anandamaya kosa comes into fuller expression.
The intellect and the 5 sense organs of perception together form the Intellectual Sheath or the Vijnanamaya kosa. It is subtler than and pervades the former 3 sheaths. It controls them as well. The 5 senses are common to both the mental and intellectual sheaths, as perception involves both the mind and the intellect.
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