In my personal practice and my teaching, I find the concept of the five aspects of ourselves – the pancha koshas – a vital foundation to help me create practice plans addressing all the aspects.  Pancha is a Sanskrit word that simply means five, and kosha means sheath.   All aspects are to be nourished and supported by different practices in the "yoga toolkit" (as my teacher Swami Pragyamurti calls it).  

 Another way of putting it is that we humans are like a lamp that has five lampshades over our light. Each of the lampshades is a different colour and density. As the light shines through the lampshades, it is progressively changed in colour and nature. On the one hand, the shades provide the individualized beauty of each lamp. Yet, the lampshades also obscure the pure light.  

This mystical concept dates right back many thousands of years...