Negation of the Five Sheaths (Koshas)

Sankara's Vivek Chudamani:: Negation  of the  Five  Sheaths (Koshas)
In the following verses Acharya Sankara addresses the seekers directly, taking up the   five  sheaths(Pancha-kosa)  one by  one,showing  how they  can be  transcended one by one,and how one can ultimately reach the   experience of subjective  Self, through negation  process.

Annamaya  Kosha(Food  Sheath)(154-164)

• The  body  isa  product of  food.  It constitutes the  food sheath It  exists because of  food and dies  without it. It is a bundle of skin,  flesh, blood, bones and  filth. Never it can be self-existing, the eternally pure Atman (154)The   physical  body  is the most powerful attraction for the  majority  of living beings, and most  of us are  aware of nothing nobler  and diviner than the  body.  However,  this body when carefully analysed is  nothing but composed of skin,etc.and filled with  faecal matter. Therefore, this filthy, unholy body can’t be the ever-pure and resplendent  Atman because the parts constituting the body are finite.
• The  body does  not  exist before its birth,  nor does it to be after its  death,  lasting   for a short  period of  our  worldly  existence.  Its qualities are also fleeting  and by nature  subject   to change.  It  is diversified and  inert  like  a jar, is  a  sense-object. How  then   can it   be  the Self…  the  witness of all changes in?  How then  can  this body   be  the Conscious,  which is the knower of  all  thoughts and thought-modifications of all things?(155)

• Ø   It  is self-evident that the Atman is the enduring  Reality,that It  is different  from the body and  its characteristics, its states and activities, that It  is witness of them all(157)
    Ø   “I am the body” thus thinks a foolish man.A man of mere book-knowledge considers himself to be a combimation of body  and the jeewa. But the realised sage, due   to his discrimination,knows  that : "I am Brahman”, and looks upon the Eternal as his Self.(160) 
  
  

  
  
  Ø  There is no liberation  for a man of  mere book-knowledge,even if he be very well-read in the  philosophy of Vedanta, as long as he does not   give up  his  false  identification   with the body, sense-organs, etc., which  are unreal(162)

  
  

  Ø  Just as you  would  not  identify  yourself with your  shadow, your reflection. Your dream-body  or thebody  in  your heart’s imagination,so too,  you should not identify yourself with your living body(163)

  
  

  Ø  For those who are attached to the unreal, Identification   with  the  body  is the seed from which the  misery  of-birth  etc. stems forth. Therefore, put in  your  effort s to destroy  it.  There can  be no chance of   rebirth if  this identification  caused  by   the 
  

       mind is renounced (164)

  Ø (b)Pranamaya-kosa(VitalAir-sheath)(165-166)
  

  Ø The Prana along with the five organs of  action, constitutes  the vital air-sheath, pervaded by   which the  food-sheath (physical body) performs all its activities as though it were living.(165)  The manifestation  of life as the  activities of the  five organs   of action (hands, feet,  and  the organs of   speech, of reproduction and  of evacuation)  is  called  the vital-air-sheath. The food-sheath is completely pervaded by this vital-air-sheath, without   which  that particular portion of the body becomes paralysed. Owing   to the  vital  air-sheath and  its  dynamism alone all the activities of the  body  take   place,  and  is considered   as  the  soul  of the   annamaya-kosa.

  Ø The  vital-air-sheath cannot be  the Self because of its modification  of air(vayu) Like  air   it  enters   the  body and  goes  out  of  it,never   knowing its joys   and  sorrows  or  those  of  others.It  is ever-  dependent  on  the  Self(166) The  Atman, the  Self,  is Eternal, All-pervasive and  Omniscient,  having  no modifications  Therefore, Pranamaya-kosa cannot be Atman.  

  Ø Manomaya-kosa(Mental-sheath)(167-183)

  The organs of perception along with the mind form the mental-sheath, which is the sole cause for the  ”I” and” mine” diversity  of things.  It has  the   essential faculty  of creating differences of names,  etc.  and it is powerful .It  pervades the  sheath  preceding  it… the vital-air- sheath(167) The mind along with its sense-centres constitute the mental-sheath.If the mind  is not available, no  perception  is possible.  The  theory  of perception  in Vedanta is   that Consciousness  riding  on the mind as Chitta flows  out through  the  sense-organs  to reach the  pot(place of Ghatadesa)  and contacts the  existence(Sat)  of the  pot.”I-ness” and “my-ness” are born in and maintained by this Manomaya-kosa. Manomaya-kosa  is that  powerful force which  creates  all the  apparent   differences  in  the  world of pluralistic experience.
  
  

  Ø The  five sense-organs  act   as  priests who  feed  the fuel of numerous  desires into the mental-sheath, which  is   the sacrificial  fire.  This fire(mental-sheath) brings about and maintains  the  entire phenomenal world when  it is set ablaze by the  sense-objects which  act  as a   continuous  stream of  oblations(168) Manomaya-kosa  is kept blazing because of the fuel of the vasanas.

  
  

  Ø Apart from the mind there is no  ignorance(avidya).The mind itself  is the ignorance which  is the cause of the bondage  of rebirth. When  the  mind  is  destroyed, everything  else is destroyed. When the mind manifests, everything  else manifests(169) Therefore, in  order   to go beyond the  world of  becoming, the mind  has  to  be  controlled and  transcended, which  is  possible only when  the sense-organs  are   controlled. When  the  non-apprehension of  Reality and  the consequent  mis-apprehensions  of  plurality, are removed, the  mind becomes  predominantly   filled with Sattwa(Sattawa-guna pradhana) maya  is then dispelled  and  one  comes to apprehend  one’s  own  Real Nature.
  
  

  Ø In  the dream-state, even though there is no contact with the outside world, the mind   alone  projects  the entire dream-universe of enjoyer etc. Similarly, the waking   state is no different.  All this world of pluralistic phenomenon,is but the  projection  of the  mind(170)In  the  deep-sleep,  the  mind  is  reduced  to  its  causal  state and  nothing perceivable  exists as  is  provided by  the universal  experience  of all people.  Therefore, man's  world of change is  just the  creation  of  his  own mind and  has no  objective  Reality(171)

  
  

  Ø  The  wind  gathers  the  clouds  together  and  it itself  scatters  them. So,  too, the mind is  responsible  for bondage  and  also for liberation(172)

  
  

  Ø  The mind causes man’s   attachment for  the  body and  the  sense-objects.  These  attachments  bind him  like an  animal  that Is bound  by  ropes.  Thereafter,  the  same mind   creates  a distance  for the  very  same sense-objects  as though they  were  poison  and  liberates  man from the bondage(173)

  Ø  Therefore, the mind is the  cause of both  liberation  as  well as bondage.  When   it  is  blemished   with  the  effects of Rajas, it causes bondage.  When  it  is free from Rajas and  Tamas  qualities,  it  paves the  way   for  liberation(174)

  Ø  When   the  mind has  been  made  pure   due  to  predominance  of   discrimination  and   dispassion,it turns  to  liberation. These  two must be  strengthened by  one  who  is an  intelligent   seeker ofl iberation(175) A huge  tiger called “mind "prowls in  the  thick  jungle  of sense-  pleasures. Let not those  virtuous  people  who have  a deep aspiration  for  liberation  ever wander therein(176)”The mind continuously delivers  for the  experience,(1)  all  sense-objects, gross and  subtle, without  exception,(2)  distinctions based  upon  body,caste, orderØ  of  life and creed,  as  well as, 3) the  difference of qualities,actions,motives and  results(177)
  
  

  Ø  Unattached  pure   intelligence  is  the   essence  of  the jeeva,  but  the mind beguiles it and binds   it   by   the   ties   of   the   body, sense-organs  and  Pranas  It  causes   this  jeeva   to  wander with   the  idea  of “I”  and “mine”  in  the  varied  experience  of “results”:  gathered  by  it.(178)

  
  

  Ø  The  evil  of  superimposition causes  man’s  transmigration and   the  mind  alone  is responsible for   the  bondage   of  superimposition.  For  a  man  who  is  tainted   with  Rajas  and  Tamas and   who  lacks   discrimination,  this  causes   the  misery   of  birth, etc. (179)  Hence the mind  is  considered  to be  the avidya  by   the  sages who  have  discovered   its  secret.  By  this alone  the   universe   of  experience  is  tossed  around like  the  clouds   by  the  wind(180)Therefore, the mind must  be   diligently  purified by one  who seeks liberation. When  the   mind  has been  purified liberation becomes as  readily  available as a  fruit  in one’s  own  hand(181)
• With single-pointed devotion for liberation,  he who roots   out   his attachments  for sense-objects,  renounces   all actions  and faith  in  Truth,  constantly  hears   the   Truth, etc, he can  purge the Rajsic nature in    his intellect(182)
• The mental-sheath cannot be  supreme Self  either, for  it   has  a  beginning  and  an  end It  is  subject   to modifications; pain  and  suffering  characterise  it and  it  is  an “object”of  cognition.  The subject can  never be identified with the ”object of knowledge”.(183)
  

  
  

  Ved  Prakash