I was teaching my regular Monday night balance class when I caught myself doing something I’ve done literally over a thousand times. I settled everyone in. I asked them to notice their bodies on the mat. Then I invited them to turn their attention to their breath. Then I asked them to let go of whatever they walked in with—the to-do list, the traffic, the conversation still playing on a loop in their head. And then I asked them to set an intention.
Body. Breath. Mind. Intention.
And I realized: I’m walking them through the koshas. I’ve been walking them through the koshas for years. I just didn’t use that term for what I was already intuitively doing.
If you’ve ever guided a centering or led a savasana, you’ve probably done the same thing. The koshas are the map for what you’re already teaching.
What Are the Koshas?
The koshas are a model from the Taittiriya Upanishad, one of the oldest yoga texts we have. The word kosha means “sheath.” Think of a series of nested layers—like those Russian nesting dolls—each one more subtle than the last. There are five of them, and they describe the layers of your being from the outside in.
I like to picture them as lampshades around a light bulb. The light at the center is your truest self—pure awareness, bliss. The lampshades filter that light. When they’re all in alignment, you shine. When one is crooked or cracked, the light gets dimmed or distorted.
yoga nidra—and really, yoga in general—is a journey through these lampshades.
The Five B’s: A Shorthand You Can Hold in One Hand
Here are the five koshas, translated into a mnemonic that sticks:
Body (annamaya kosha)—the physical body. Your bones, muscles, skin. The you that you can see in the mirror.
Breath (pranamaya kosha)—the breath body. Prana means breath and life force. Take a full breath right now. You feel it in your chest, yes, but something else shifts too. Something energetic.
Brain (manomaya kosha)—the thinking and feeling body. Your thoughts, your moods, your reactions. Your to-do list at 3 a.m.
Belly (vijnanamaya kosha)—the wisdom body. Your intuition, your gut knowing, the clarity that rushes in when you finally get still enough to hear it.
Bliss (anandamaya kosha)—the bliss body. The innermost lampshade, or the light itself. You don’t have to create bliss, make it happen, or earn it. It’s already there.
Body, breath, brain, belly, bliss. Five B’s. Once you have that shorthand, the whole model fits in one hand.
You’re Already Teaching the Koshas in Every Class
Think about any centering you’ve ever taught. What did you do?
You probably said something like: “Find a comfortable position. Feel the ground beneath you.” That’s the body layer. Then: “Deepen your breath. Notice the inhale and the exhale.” That’s the breath layer. Then maybe: “Let go of whatever happened before you got here.” That’s the brain layer—you’re asking students to quiet the mental chatter. And then: “Set an intention for your practice.” That’s reaching toward vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom body.
You’ve been guiding people through the koshas every time you teach. The koshas are the map.
It works the same way at the end of class. When you bring students into their final resting pose, you are repeating the journey, helping them settle back through these layers. The body gets heavy. The brain softens. The thoughts quiet down. And if you’ve done your job well and the students are willing, there’s a moment of stillness underneath all of it. That’s the bliss body. Your students have been touching it this whole time in final relaxation—they just might not have had a name for it.
The “Specific to General” Dial
When you understand the koshas as a framework, you start to see that guiding relaxation isn’t just about telling people to relax. It’s about systematically meeting them where they are—at the surface, in their physical body—and walking them inward through increasingly subtle territory.
I think of it as a dial. At the beginning of a relaxation or centering, the dial is turned all the way to “specific.” You’re naming body parts. You’re giving clear, concrete instructions. As you move through the layers, you gradually turn that dial toward “general.” By the time you reach the deeper koshas, you’re offering images, open-ended invitations, a whole lot of space. Your students’ experience becomes entirely their own.
That dial—specific to general—is one of the most useful teaching concepts I know. And it comes directly from understanding the koshas.
Why This Matters for Yoga Nidra (and NSDR)
Yoga nidra is the fullest, most deliberate expression of this journey through the koshas. In a centering, you might touch three or four layers in 90 seconds. In yoga nidra, you spend the entire practice moving through all five—slowly, systematically, with intention.
You start at the body layer with the rotation of consciousness. Then you move to the breath layer. Next, the brain layer through the practice of opposites—heavy and light, hot and cold, rough and smooth. Then the wisdom layer through visualization. And finally, the bliss body, where you create space for your students to access something that was there all along.
You might have heard of NSDR—non-sleep deep rest—a term coined by the neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. It’s essentially yoga nidra repackaged without the Sanskrit. Millions of people now know that guided deep rest is real and science-backed because a scientist they trust said so. What they don’t know yet is that a trained yoga teacher—someone who understands the koshas and can guide people through these layers with skill and intention—offers something no app or podcast ever will. That’s an opportunity for you.
The Big Catch: You Can’t Force Relaxation
Here’s the catch, and it’s a big one. You cannot force people to relax. As the bumper sticker says, never in the history of calming down has telling someone to calm down ever worked.
You can guide people toward relaxation. You can create the conditions. You can walk them through the koshas with beautiful language and perfect pacing. But at a certain point, you have to let go. You have to trust the process and not be too attached to the outcome.
This is one of the deepest lessons yoga has to offer. It applies to your teaching just as much as it applies to your own practice. You do the work, and then you release your grip on the result. The Bhagavad Gita says it. Patanjali says it. And if you’ve ever tried to will yourself into relaxation, you know it in your bones: the harder you try, the further away it gets.
What you can do is guide your students layer by layer, kosha by kosha, toward the conditions where relaxation becomes possible. And then you step back. You get quiet. You hold the space. And you let them arrive on their own.
Try This in Your Next Class
The next time you teach, pay attention to your centering. Notice whether you’re naturally moving through the koshas—body, breath, brain. Are you touching each layer? If you usually stop there, try going one layer deeper. After you’ve asked students to quiet the mind, invite them to connect with something underneath the chatter. An intention. A felt sense. Their own wisdom.
You don’t need to call it vijnanamaya kosha. You don’t need any Sanskrit at all. Just see what happens when you guide your students one layer further in.
Then at the end of class, notice whether you’re giving students enough space to move through those layers—or rushing from the brain layer straight to “and slowly begin to wiggle your fingers and toes.” Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is nothing. Give them 30 more seconds. Let the deeper layers do their work.
The koshas aren’t some abstract philosophical concept that lives in a dusty text. They’re a map—a map of your being, a map for your teaching, and a map for guiding people from the surface of their experience all the way into the light at the center. You’ve been using this map every time you teach. Now you know what to call it.
Want to go deeper? Listen to the full episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential: Yoga Nidra, the Koshas, and You.
