The Practice of Spiritual Breathing
Lately, we have been focusing on some new Spiritual Breathing exercises, techniques and meditations. And so this month, I’d like to share a couple of them with you.
For me, the path of Breath Mastery is the path of Self Mastery. It is about body, mind and emotional mastery. In the purest sense, breathwork is a path to spiritual awakening and spiritual development.
Leonard Orr, the father of the Rebirthing Breathwork recognized that breathing is a powerful form of spiritual purification. He said it was the art of “merging the outer breath which is air, with the inner breath which is spirit.”
Breathwork is finally making its way into the mainstream, mostly because of its physical, emotional, and mental benefits. It helps athletes with speed, strength, and endurance. That’s why so many people in the fitness world are drawn to it and are promoting it.
Breathwork is finally being accepted by the medical and therapy communities because of its physiological, psychological, emotional, and social benefits. Unfortunately, as Breathwork becomes more popular there is a good chance it will follow the way of yoga.
Yoga began as a spiritual practice, and yet today most people are only interested in the health and fitness benefits. And so it seems that the original purpose–the essence–has been lost or forgotten.
And that is why my focus more and more is on Spiritual Breathing. In fact, my next book will be on The Art of Spiritual Breathing.
I love teaching and supporting others in gaining the physical, emotional, mental and social benefits of Breathwork, but my heart is in training others in the higher order benefits.
Higher order benefits include raising and expanding one’s consciousness, accelerating personal and planetary evolution, and spiritual awakening and development. Spiritual Breathing is about personal enlightenment, self-realization, and ultimate liberation.
It begins with opening the heart and repatterning the mind-body system. It is about transcending ego identification, spiritual materialism, and the illusion of separateness.
Here are a couple of practices you can begin to explore and experiment with:
1. The Spiritual Breathing Sandwich:
Imagine yourself in front of a huge buffet with every kind of delicious food laid out on a long table. ANd you are ready to make a sandwich.
You start with a slice of breath (the inhale) and choose a sauce or dressing. Then you build a sandwich… adding lettuce, tomato, pickles, cheese, or any of your favorite meats and veggies, and then you top it off with a second slice of bread (the exhale).
Now you have a perfectly delicious sandwich with lots of layers and textures and flavors. This means putting every level and aspect of your being into every breath. It means making every breath a prayer, and experiencing every breath as a blessing.
It means bringing together Breath with thoughts, words, phrases, affirmations or power statements, imagery or visualization, sound, movement, emotion, passion, enthusiasm. Putting these into every breath.
Remembering that what you get out of a Breathing Session depends on what you put into it! And so, it means putting your whole body, mind, heart, and soul into every breath. It means being total! So, go for it!
2. Activating Breath and Still Point Breathing:
Depending on your level of health and degree of skill, begin with between 10 seconds and 2 minutes of full, rapid, wild, crazy, deep breathing, through the mouth. Breathe as fast and full and deep as possible.
Next, do 3 rounds of Still Point Breathing. That is, take a long slow gentle full inhale through the nose and then give yourself a big delicious sigh of relief through the mouth.
Let go and relax completely. Leave the surface. Drop down and ride the exhale to your center, to the depths of your being. When the air stops coming out, keep relaxing. Keep letting go. Keep dropping down.
And at the bottom of your exhale, sit in the open silence and stillness. Linger there and postpone the inhale until the urge to breathe in takes over. And then surrender to that natural impulse.
Receive the first part of the inhale. Let the body breathe in, and then at some point take over the inhale and gently add more breath and energy. Open and expand more and more until you reach the point of fullness.
Then let go and relax, and again ride the exhale down to your source, your center, to a space of silence and stillness. Sit in the field of electrical, vibrating, tingling, sparkling sense of aliveness, and deliberately enjoy it!
Do three rounds of this dropping down into the still point, and then do another 10 seconds to 2 minutes of rapid, deep, wildly activating breaths. Repeat the process three times.
And then let your breath come and go by itself, and meditate on the feelings of pure being and aliveness.
Let me know, and share with others, your experience and the results of this practice.
Love and blessings to all,
