The breath of life

Our yoga practice is to still the mind through unifying body, breath and mind on the wings of breath. This is a portable practice which can be done while walking, sitting, driving, and, of course, on a yoga mat doing asanas or meditation. Since we have to breathe anyway, this practice doesn’t place demands on our time or busy schedule. In fact, when we become conscious of the “breath of life,” we decrease our bondage to time and remove the stress from our schedule.

So lets take a practice run and leap from the edge of our nest and flap our wings of breath. Sit in a straight position wherever you are so that the spine is like a vertical axis going from the root of the spine in the pelvic basis to the crown of the head. Imagine that the spine is going from earth to the heavens. In the middle of this axis is the heart, which you can visualize as an expansion of light.

Now bring the breath up, first by breathing in from the belly, up from the depth of the earth and the stillness one would expect to find there, like in a deep cave where nothing has moved for a million years. Let the breath rise from the belly, then up through the center of light in the heart, now expand the breath through the chest, and take this light and push it up into the crown of the head, and imagine the light filling the heavens.

Then, after a brief conscious pause enjoying the light, exhale the breath down back through the heart into the stillness of the cave or earth. Pause there briefly and let the stillness absorb your consciousness. Imagine it to be the void out of which creation dawns. Feel the vastness of space in that stillness. There is no boundary, no end to the movement of your awareness as it falls into this eternal peace.

Now let the breath awaken and rise up once again like a newly created being, a first born, a new form, a new breath of life, the first breath of your existence. Let the cycle of birth and death of the breath continue in an even flow.

Lets add the dimension of sound. Let the breath flow across the back of the palette making an ocean sound flowing in and flowing out. Let this be the sound of the breath of life. Then, to get the mind even more involved, let this ocean sound be that of OM. Say Ooooooom as the breath comes up, and Ommmmmmmmm as the breath goes down. Let the mmmmmmmm disappear into the stillness. Each breath is a complete Om. Om means creation-preservaton-and death, the cycle of life, the cycle of the breath. Om is God.

In this practice of the Breath of Life, you can see how the mind and body and breath become one. In the unity of the breath, awareness of one’s whole Self rises. This awareness is without thought. We are allowing the awareness of space to rise. We are space.

By riding the Breath of life, one touches the indwelling source of our being, our peace and our joy, and our life gets a new pair of wings.