The body of feeling and emotion is related to the mind. When there is a stimulus the mind often reacts with a conditioned response dependent upon residues of memory.
Through purification, the body/mind is released from its conditioning. There are many levels of purification-body, senses, speech and mind. However, purification is not in the becoming process, as it has nothing to do with getting better. Neither obtaining nor giving up brings us to what we are for we already are being what we are searching to become-non-objectified Awareness.
As the body purifies it loses its solidity, becoming translucent, then transparent. Here the body expands into its energetic presence. When we work at the level of the energy body feelings and emotions are released, which, when welcomed into Awareness further release our transparency. Transparency relieves the attitude of being a doer for in transparency there is only perceiving, only feeling.
In working with the body of emotion we open completely to the play of opposites. Anger and serenity, sadness and happiness, sorrow and joy are each welcomed in turn. No emotion is left repressed. When emotion is welcomed and not refused, when nothing is left rejected in the psyche, and then we live in accepting without psychological resignation. Then, feeling and emotion point back to Awareness in which they arise. The reactive mind dissolves and each situation unfolds with its appropriate and spontaneous response. Emotion and feeling are there realized to be pointers to, and not separate from, nondual Awareness.
4. The body of intellect and imagery - Vijñânamaya Kosha
Inquiry into the body of intellect and imagery reveals concepts, beliefs and memories, which underlie separation and suffering. Beliefs spontaneously deconstruct when they are completely described into Awareness without any movement for them to be other than they are. Deconstruction leads to disidentification, which reveals the underlying unitive Awareness in which all beliefs have their home ground. As each belief deconstructs, its paired opposite, which was contained within the psyche, is also released and integration of mind unfolds. Greater transparency is revealed, which relieves the attitude of being a perceiver.
5. The body of joy - Anandamaya Kosha
Purification of false beliefs reveals greater transparency to our true nature as Awareness. One signpost of being at the threshold of our nondual nature is the breaking through of uncaused joy. As we live freely in this joy,associated identifications are further purified. Living for long periods in the body of joy, as in all the koshas, brings us to the threshold of our true nature. At this point outgoing attention, which has been absorbed in the process of revealing and purification is turned back onto itself. The observer becomes the observed.
6. The body of ego-I - Asmitamaya Kosha
Five koshas are normally described in the classical literature. A sixth Kosha deals with the subtle witness and sense of separation that is always present in the previous five koshas, even when the body of joy is fully expanded.
When the first five koshas deconstruct, all of the outgoing energy that has been invested in them turns in upon itself. Here the perceiver becomes perceived and an infinite regression is set in motion. The perceiver becomes the perceived over and again until there is total collapse of the mind with all of its subtle forms of ego-I separateness. This collapse unfolds spontaneously for there is no separate ego-I that can make it happen. When the ego-I totally collapses, there is only perceiving, for no 'I' image is possible in perceiving.