Beyond the Spiritual Journey: How Cannabis and the Five Koshas Deepen Meditation and Self-Awareness

I’ve always found it funny—and honestly a little lame—when people refer to deep experiences with plant medicine as “journeys.” The word suggests distance, as if insight lives somewhere else, waiting to be reached. But what cannabis and other plant allies reveal has never felt distant to me. It feels familiar, like touching a thread in a web that was already holding you. Not new territory, but remembered territory.

As I write this in a coffee shop in Echo Park, surrounded by people who probably use that word freely, I’m reminded of my own contradictions. I’ve guided students through yoga classes, cannabis-assisted and not, and invited them to notice the journey on their mats, the journey within, the journey through sensation. As you can see, sometimes language fails us, and sometimes we try our best to capture and express what feels ethereal and flighty. I mean, who hasn’t been a hypocrite in the service of meaning?

Still, what these experiences open is not travel but recognition. Yogic philosophy offers a framework for this remembering: the Koshas. The Koshas are five sheaths, or layers, of awareness that describe how consciousness expresses itself through the human experience. Rather than destinations, they are dimensions already present, waiting for attention.

Think of a small moment of mistaken perception. You see someone across the street and wave, convinced it’s your friend. As they approach, you realize they are a stranger. Embarrassment rises, then laughter. Nothing external changed except your awareness. The shift happened within perception itself. 

The Koshas describe these layers of perception, from the tangible to the subtle. Imagine them as a spiral moving outward and back in again.

Annamaya Kosha
The physical body, the sheath of flesh and form. What you can see and touch. The way your jaw tightens when you’re stressed.

Pranamaya Kosha
The energetic body, the undercurrent of life force. This is what you feel when you walk into a room and immediately think, “She’s gonna be my friend.” Vibes, breath, intuition.

Manomaya Kosha
The first layer of mental awareness. Thoughts, narratives, self-talk. This is where the chatter lives — the place behind a “bad trip” or just a bad day. My thoughts are not me, and I am not my thoughts.

Vijnanamaya Kosha
The second mental layer — discernment and wisdom. This is where perspective shifts from self-consciousness to self-reflection. Where awareness gets curious instead of critical.

Anandamaya Kosha
The bliss body. The quiet hum beneath everything. Not constant happiness, but deep connection — the sense that you’re held by something larger than your momentary mood.

Humans have always sought altered states, whether through ritual, breath, stillness, or plant medicine. What we seek is not escape but intimacy with what already exists within us. Each practice becomes a way of turning inward, of remembering rather than acquiring.

I return to the spiral often. Not as something to conquer, but something to tune in to.

Sometimes that recognition arrives through meditation. Sometimes through movement. Sometimes through the conscious ritual of cannabis, or through the discipline of abstaining. Either way, the movement is the same: outward, through layers, toward something greater that has never left, and back in again.

So I invite you now to listen, breathe, and notice. Not to go anywhere new, but to sense what has always been here. To feel the subtle pull. To remember yourself at the center of your own awareness and what unfolds beyond it.

Let the body be your doorway, the breath your guide, and awareness your teacher. There is nowhere else to arrive. Only layers to feel, soften, and see clearly. What you call a journey may simply be the moment you stop searching and begin feeling. The spiral does not demand effort. It asks only for your willingness to notice, again and again.

So here I am, as I guide you through the five Koshas in today’s 5-minute meditation, in hopes that you, too, feel that subtle, magnetic pull toward the center of your own spiral.

-Danielle