The Mental Sheath (Manomaya-Kośa)
The layer of thought and feeling — the busy mind whose moods we so easily take for ourselves.
The manomaya-kośa is the 'sheath made of mind' — the layer of thoughts, emotions, and the constant processing of what the senses bring in. It is the busy, reactive mind where thinking and feeling meet. Most people identify strongly with this layer, so their sense of self rises and falls with passing moods and ideas. The teaching is to recognize this mental layer as something awareness moves through, not something to be identified with.
Key passages(3)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
The intelligent, whose body is spirit, whose form is light, whose thoughts are true, whose nature is like ether (omnipresent and invisible), from whom all works, all desires, all sweet odours and tast
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'The earth (food) when eaten becomes threefold; its grossest portion becomes feces, its middle portion flesh, its subtilest portion mind.
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