Last week as I taught classes and sat with 1-1 yoga therapy clients I used breath awareness as a teaching point. As I did so, my own insight into the breath and its power became deeper. (If you missed last weeks “Thought of the Week” called Just Breath, click here).
The longer I practice yoga or converse with esteemed teachers, the more highlighted the breath becomes. It’s not as though I never knew on an intellectual level the breath played an important role, but the actual practice of using the breath to alter attention, emotions, release tension and penetrate into my being continues to expand.
If we look at the Eight-Faceted Path expressed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras they are:
1. Yama (universal moral principles)
2. Niyama (individual disciplines)
3. Asana (physical poses)
4. Pranayama (breath regulation)
5. Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses)
6. Dharana (concentration)
7. Dhyana (mediation)
8. Samadhi (spiritual absorption)
From this philosophical perspective, if you engage in the above practices you create a framework for living a yogic based lifestyle. The importance of the breath is integral to the yoga way because if you didn’t include it, it would make the other practices something other than yoga. If you did physical postures without the awareness of breath it would be calisthenics; if you didn’t have the breath to anchor your attention it would be difficult to pull the senses inward, to concentrate, much less glide into a meditative state.
The breath is the thread that connects our body, mind and spirit. We are thought to have five “bodies”, called the koshas (also translated as sheaths). Our breath takes us from our most gross and obvious sheath (our physical body), through our breath, mental, intuitive and, hopefully, out to our blissful body. And who doesn’t want to live in a more blissful state?
We need our breath to take us on this journey.
The other amazing insight that came to light this week was asking the question, “What other organ/system in the body is both able to function whether you are unconscious or fully conscious?”. Can you dilate your pupils upon request? Can you digest your food just by thinking about it? Can you ask your heart to speed up or slow down (without using the breath)? Can you alter your temperature? I know I can’t! But what I can do, is to bring my full awareness, my full consciousness, into how I am breathing. I can also completely ignore it without dying…my body will still breathe whether I’m thinking about it or not.
Ultimately, isn’t that what our personal evolution is about? Consciousness? We become more and more connected to how we are living this life in a physical way through our bodies, in a mental and emotional way through our thoughts and words and in a spiritual way through our disciplines and actions. As these practices unfold, we begin to recognize that the key that opens all these doors is our breath.
OK…exhale. Digest these words and then…dive deeper!
