The Five Layers of Being: Understanding Yoga's Planes of Existence

The Physical Body: Where We All Begin

This is the layer we know best—your annamaya kosha, literally the "food body". It's made of what you eat, shaped by how you move, and it's where most of us meet yoga for the first time.

When you settle into a restorative pose, perhaps a supported child's pose with your forehead resting on a bolster, you're tending to this physical layer. You're giving your muscles permission to soften, your joints space to decompress, your bones a chance to settle into gravity's embrace.

But here's what's lovely: even as we care for the physical body, we're already preparing the ground for deeper work. A tight body often holds a tight mind. As we release physical tension, we create openings in the other layers too.

The Energy Body: Your Inner Weather System

Beneath the physical lies the pranamaya kosha, your energetic body. This is the home of your breath, your vitality, that subtle sense of aliveness that flows through you.

You know that feeling when you're exhausted, but it's not quite physical tiredness? Or when you walk into a room and can somehow sense the atmosphere? That's you perceiving the energetic layer—in yourself and others.

In restorative yoga, we work with this layer through conscious breathing. Long, slow breaths don't just calm your nervous system; they harmonise your energy, smoothing out the static and turbulence that accumulates through daily life. Think of it as tending to your inner weather, gently clearing the storms.

The Mental-Emotional Body: Where Stories Live

The third layer, manomaya kosha, is where your thoughts and emotions swirl together. This is the realm of your memories, your worries about tomorrow, your running commentary on everything.

This layer can be rather noisy, can't it? It's where we replay conversations, plan dinners, solve problems, and sometimes torture ourselves with imagined scenarios that will never happen.

What's remarkable about a restorative practice is that we're not trying to silence this layer—that would be impossible, and rather unkind besides. Instead, we're learning to observe it with gentleness. As you rest in stillness, supported by props, you begin to notice the patterns of your mind without being entirely swept away by them.

You start to see: ah, there's that worry again. There's that old story. And slowly, over time, you realise you're not in the story—you're watching it. That shift is everything.

The Wisdom Body: Your Intuitive Knowing

Deeper still lies the vijnanamaya kosha, the layer of wisdom and insight. This is where true understanding lives—not the kind you get from books or Google searches, but the knowing that emerges from your own direct experience.

This is the layer that whispers "something's not right" before your conscious mind has worked it out. It's the part of you that knows what you need, even when what you want is pulling you elsewhere.

In yoga, we cultivate this layer through sustained, mindful practice. When you hold a restorative pose for five or ten minutes, you're not just stretching—you're listening. You're creating space for that quieter, wiser voice to make itself heard above the mental chatter.

Many students tell me that insights arrive during or after practice—not dramatic revelations necessarily, but gentle clarifications, small knowings that shift everything.

The Bliss Body: Your Essential Nature

At the very core lies the anandamaya kosha, the bliss body. This isn't about feeling ecstatic all the time (wouldn't that be exhausting?). Rather, it's that deep sense of contentment and wholeness that exists underneath everything else—the peace that's always there, even when life is challenging.

This layer is you, stripped of all the stories and roles and worries. It's the part of you that was never broken, never needed fixing, was whole from the start.

We catch glimpses of it in those rare moments when everything else falls away—watching a sunset, holding someone you love, or sometimes, resting completely in a restorative yoga pose, held and supported, with absolutely nothing to do.

How Restorative Yoga Works With All Five Layers

What makes restorative yoga so powerful is that it creates the conditions for all these layers to settle and integrate. You're not forcing anything—you're simply providing the time, space, and support for your whole being to restore itself.

As your physical body releases into the props, your energy naturally balances. As your energy settles, your mind becomes less frantic. As your mind quiets, wisdom has space to emerge. And sometimes, in those deep moments of rest, you touch that innermost layer of peace.

This is why you might lie in savasana for ten minutes and emerge feeling like you've had a full night's sleep. You haven't just rested your body—you've tended to all the layers of your being.

Bringing This Into Your Practice

You don't need to think about all five layers whilst you're practising. In fact, it's better if you don't. Just come to your mat (or your screen for our Sunday online sessions), settle into the support of your props, and breathe.

The layers will take care of themselves. Your only job is to show up, to be present, to allow. The unfolding happens naturally when we create the right conditions—which is exactly what restorative yoga does.

As Iyengar reminds us, yoga is about integration—bringing all these layers into harmony so that they work together rather than pulling in different directions. When that happens, even just for a moment, you experience yourself as whole. Not perfect, not problem-free, but whole.

And that, really, is what we're all looking for, isn't it? Not to be someone different, but to come home to ourselves, to remember the wholeness that was there all along.

Join us for Sunday restorative yoga sessions online with Circle Yoga, where we create space for all layers of your being to rest, restore, and integrate. Whether you're new to yoga or have been practising for years, you're welcome exactly as you are.

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