The Five Sheaths - Pancha Kosha
The five layers covering the true Self.
The Self is veiled by five sheaths: food (body), vital energy, mind, intellect, and bliss. By discrimination, one realizes the Self is beyond all these coverings.
Beyond the intellect is the great Self, beyond the great Self is the Unmanifest, beyond the Unmanifest is the Purusha.
This model helps discriminate between Self and not-self.
Taittiriya Upanishad
Written about in
- What the Upanishads say about the self
The self is described as covered by five layers: food, breath, mind, understanding and bliss. It works as a method, since each layer is something you can name as yours.
- What the Upanishads say about grief
A person is sorted into five layers: food-body, vital breath, mind, intellect, bliss. Grief is asked to notice which layer it is mourning. The tradition says the outer sheaths were always perishable, and does not pretend that makes their loss small.