Do You Think That's Air You're Breathing?

Welcome to the first blog post of The Soul School!

As you traverse the challenges and experiences of your unique life path, you have one companion, just one, which remains unchanging and forever with you: your breath. Your breath provides an anchor in Reality, a counterbalance to the mind through which to regain your connection with what is True and lasting. Breath is not simply the exchange of chemicals inside of your body, it is the light of awareness weaving you into the fabric of Creation. You are like a bead strung along a thread of breath, hosted by it, animated by it, supported by it, lived by it. As you attend to your breath it is worth being curious and open to its mysterious and benevolent intelligence which is breathing you alive in every moment, even when you’re completely unaware. Just like in the training simulation scene of the movie The Matrix where Morpheus asks Neo, “you think that’s air you’re breathing?”, we would do well to ask ourselves the same question. So, friends, do you think that’s air you’re breathing??  

When you establish a deep and intimate relationship with your breath, you will discover a resource available to you which connects your 3D consciousness with other dimensions of consciousness, and therefore with your essential timelessness. We are speaking now not just of breathing but becoming aware of breathing. Becoming aware of your breath doesn’t mean you have to breathe a certain way or artificially create a heightened experience of breathing. You simply become conscious of the exchange process happening between you, and all that you see and experience. The more conscious you become of this thread of exchange weaving between you and “outside” of you, the more you open the door to discover that the thing called “you” is actually outside of your body and all around! It’s everything you come into contact with, everything. 

This level of awareness can be facilitated simply by asking oneself the question, “how far away from my body does my breath begin?” Does it begin one inch away? One foot? One meter? How about a hundred meters? A mile? A hundred miles? Pretty soon, as you attempt to trace your breath back to its origin, your consciousness will have expanded to include the entire planet and beyond! The point is not to be able to answer the question, it is to become deeply involved and mystified by the question—”where does my breath begin?”

We normally associate our breath with our nose and lungs. We tend to see it as a physical phenomenon and therefore related to the body only. Of course, it is related to the body, but it’s also transcendent of the physical paradigm. Therefore it’s useful to become aware of the space surrounding your body and the fact that wherever you go, the breath has always been and will always be there with you, waiting for you ahead of time. Your breath was the very first thing that occurred upon your birth into form, and it is the very last thing to occur upon your departure from this form. It bookends a lifetime beginning with the first inhale and ending with the last exhale. The breath connects your birth and death in perfect circularity.

Just relax and take a few slow, deep breaths simply for the sake of feeling something flow into your body and flow back out again. Take a few more. Today is an interactive blog, let’s really do it! Just hold your attention on the fact that you can’t stop it for more than a moment. If you become greedy and try to hold it in there’s no way to do so except briefly. If you play hard to get and try to push it away it returns even more quickly! Where does your breath begin before it enters your body? Where does your breath go once it exits your body? 

The breath is actually a model of Reality. If you pay close attention, you may notice that all of the attributes we have traditionally assigned to God—omnipresent, omniscient, eternal, unconditioned and benevolent—are actually applicable to the breath. Check it out: everywhere you go your breath is always already waiting for you. Your breath doesn’t care what mood you’re in, it is continuing the exchange of in-flow and out-flow on your behalf regardless of your beliefs and judgments. Your breath has no beginning and no end, it has no discernible point of origin. Without your breath you’d have to agree that you wouldn’t have awareness. In this physical, polarized dimension we experience the light of awareness as a process of breathing (the polarity of in and out, full and empty etc), but the essence of breath itself is not the movement of the diaphragm per se, rather it is the realization that giving and receiving are one. The in-flow and out-flow of breath together creates a single phenomenon, a universal harmony, by which one can no longer distinguish between inner and outer realities. They are woven together seamlessly until all you come into contact with is felt and known as You.

I invite you to play with the feeling that the breath was what you were before you were born, and is what you will be after you die. The breath is the common denominator of all experience, not only yours but everyone’s! Within this world of differences, beliefs and opinions, the breath is common to all beings, it is the one reality which unifies all individual worlds and perceptions. When we tune into the breath in an earnest and heart-felt way, we are really tuning into the Universal Mind, God-Mind, Spirit, Source, Creation.

I invite you to play with another simple and powerful practice by spending some time paying attention to the breaths other people take as they speak with you, instead of the words that they say. Place your attention on someone’s pattern of breathing, not to decipher it but to increase your awareness that words are simply the communication through the body-mind, but that which is doing the speaking is actually the breath, or spaciousness, which are essentially the same. Words written on a page have a white, blank backdrop of space so that they may appear to the eye. Words spoken in the mind are thoughts emerging from out of an otherwise empty and vast spaciousness. Words when spoken vocally are born from out of the space of breath which sends them forward or, you might say, sponsors their arising. In every form of verbalized language—thinking, writing, and speaking—the backdrop to words is what we call the breath, or spaciousness. To become aware of this spaciousness, which is not just semantics but a ground of Being, Existence or Life, is then to become spacious awareness itself! The quality of your presence will change when you pay attention as much to the breath as the words, the white page as the black letters, the silent space as the arising thoughts!

Big deep breath in…. and out…. it’s a privilege and a joy to be here with you at this time of our collective ascent into higher consciousness!  Take another breath of self-congratulation, you’re doing the perfect job, in fact you’re the best person to be you out of everyone who applied :) Until next time,

May You Be Blessed With Deep and Easy Breathing!

Together We Are One

David Y.