Our koshas lead to our bliss
The first retreat I went on was a yoga bootcamp with Baron Baptiste. I took my sister, who had never done yoga before. Morning walk of 2 miles along the beach. On the first day everyone looked grey, travel weary, disoriented. We walked north up the beach in a line, no talking. The head of the line looped back at 1 mile and the line passed itself coming back. No one made eye contact.
Our food was fresh and local but through the course of 8 days dwindled to vegetables and fish and then to only fresh juice for 4 days and back out to a final dinner. We hadn’t known this was included. 3 hours of yoga in the morning, then an obligatory hour in the ocean, 68 of us bobbing in the waves, chatting with our big hats blowing in the breeze. Lunch and a rest and 2 more hours in the afternoon. It was killer. It was hard. It changed everything.
What stood out for me was at the arrival circle the first evening everyone had a chance to say why they came. Someone had parked her car full of all her belongings at the airport. She had left her husband and had no idea what she would do when she went back. Someone else had had her third miscarriage and didn’t know how to relate to her own body any more. Someone else was addicted to exercise and hoped to find love for herself in these days. Another was writing a book and needed to step away after months of focus that had felt fruitless. Such sorrow and struggle, all so different.
The last morning as we did our walk as the line circled back and we walked past each other, no one spoke, but we smiled and we glowed. We admired each other, knowing we each had a new light, knowing we had all made it to this day through hours of tears and sweat and snot and seawater. As if we’d been reborn.
At the end of the retreat we had a final circle before leaving. It astounded me. Everyone, to a letter, had gotten not necessarily what they had come from, but better. They had gotten what they needed. Often what they came for seemed laughable compared to what showed up, washed away, or arrived in their bodies.
I’ve been to many yoga retreats since then, and it took me a while to run my own because of the magic that can be there when it is more than just getting away from it all. I wanted to run something that transformative - not quite that bootcampy - but something that let you immerse yourself in the power of the practices of yoga.
This June I return to Xinalani resort to teach for the 4th time. Laurie Jacobson and Stephanie Jameson asked and asked for years and I kept turning them down. Come, they said, it’s paradise. Finally, I agreed to join them there in this magical spot just south of Puerto Vallarta. Paradise indeed.
Each time I go I get a better sense of how to use the time - how to give it structure so the yoga comes through, and how to leave you to it so the magic of rest, sand, books, chatting, and little adventures of your own can be its own essential, restorative medicine.
This time I am using the koshas as a roadmap through our bodies and our 6 days together.
Kosha translates as ‘sheath’ or ‘layer.’ They map the transformation of the body from the unmanifested form into the manifest (the physical body). Like the petals of a flower, the kosher system has 5 layers moving from the most tangible (the physical body) to the subtlest (the bliss body).
Maya translates as ‘illusion’ or ‘veil.’ This is used because our whole world is perceived through our human senses. And these senses consider what they can feel, see, or even imagine to be true or real. But these layers are the way the human mind can organize its experience as infinite energy brought into finite lives. I love that the names of each layer helps us remember not to take it as truth, not to give it too much credence because it is actually only an illusion holding other illusions. (It’ll make sense…)
Day 1 starts us in annamaya kosha. Our food or physical body. This is changing all the time, metamorphosing. This kosha responds to all physical activity, asana, bodywork, massage, and diet. How we treat our outer shell filters into all the other sheaths. Kundalini kriya in the morning, vinyasa into yoga nidra in the afternoons will start to ease us out of the habits and constraints of our home bodies and into a more easeful neutral. Book your bodywork for the week now.
Day 2 will be pranamaya kosha. Our energetic or breath body. This pranic body is the seat of the subtle energy that courses through our body. Without pranamaya the physical body would not be able to sustain its life. This body responds beautifully to the many practices of pranayama. With longer breath practices at the start and the end of the day we have a chance to feel how new patterns in the breath affect new patterns in the mind.
Day 3 will be manomaya kosha. Our mind and emotions. This body takes information from our senses and the environment and acts on it. This body loves mantra meditations and to be fed beautiful stimuli through the senses. Having been at Xinalani a few days we are finding ourselves at home in our bodies and in our time differently. The clean, local food is helping us feel lighter and brighter. We grow patient, curious, listening longer, and can settle into longer mantras.
Day 4 we start to affect vijnanamaya kosha. Our wisdom mind, our higher intelligence. This sheath includes our consciousness and will. This layer separates us from animals as we can direct our life not just from instinct or impulse but use our will and discernment to know what is right and wrong. The Yamas and Niyamas nourish this layer. Today after morning practice we have time to write a letter to our home selves, thanking them for taking this time, and using the Yamas and Niyamas to reflect on changes they want to make once home again.
Day 5 we land in our bliss body anandamaya kosha. The bliss body is the junction where consciousness and energy meet and intermingle. In this perfect body there is no fear or desire but a grand opening of the heart which feels as if you are one with everything. We have gained familiarity with slowing down, trusting in the power of being still, laughing, being in company, being alone. Yoga Nidra brings us closer to this divine bliss and we have our longest session of the trip to let the wisdom within us rise to the surface.
We are so much more than our physical bodies. Our inner landscape is created from our breath, our thoughts and emotions, our discernment and at the heart of it is an inner sun. Its illumination shines through us as Atman, the true Self, the Sat Nam, or the name of your own understanding. Regardless of the turmoil that washes through our other layers, the ‘heart’ of us is timeless and unchanging.
Join me. June 20-25, 2026 Xinalani Resort. Fly into Puerto Vallarta. We’ll handle the rest.
www.marthamcalpine.com/xinalani2026 for details
+ a little playlist for Mexico yoga times