hindu-selfWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.

The Five Layers of the Self (Pañca-Kośa)

The self as concentric layers — peel back body, energy, and mind, and pure awareness is the core.

This teaching pictures the self as a set of nested layers, each subtler than the last and wrapped around an innermost core: an outer physical body; within it the layer of vital energy and the breathing life-force; within that the layer of mind, thought, and feeling; subtler still a near-formless layer met in deep stillness; and at the center the pure awareness that is one's true nature. The point is practical and freeing: suffering comes from mistaking ourselves for one of the outer layers, and clarity comes from recognizing the awareness at the core. Kashmir Shaivism takes up this old Upaniṣadic 'sheath' model and reads its innermost core as living Śiva-consciousness itself.