Meditation on Breath

By: Susan Ellison

April 2019

The breath has the same qualities as the Divine, The All that Is, the Tao, the Presence, Consciousness.

It is formless, weightless, invisible, available to everyone, impersonal, unemotional, and always present. It is timeless, nonphysical, has no beginning and no end, is not born and does not die.

The body receives the breath from the Universe, a Universe, which scientist say they cannot find an end to. With each breath, we take in a cosmic breath from the atmosphere of eternity, the eternal NOW.

Breath is the force that ignites consciousness in the body. It is the portal between Source and this body.

Kafir, an ancient mystic poet said, “ God is the breath within the breath!”

A person can do without food or water for sometime but cannot go without the breath for more than a few minutes. The breath is life and it is given freely without you having to think about it, ask for it, or desire it, It is just there. Without it the body breaks down to its basic elements and returns to the Universe. The breath breathes me!

The breath reminds us of our Oneness with all that is. There is one breath. We all receive the same breath from the Universe. What I exhale, you inhale, what you exhale, I inhale, Our ancestors breathed the same cosmic breath that we are breathing. It sustains all without discrimination, favoritism, and without conditions.

You can go any where in the world, where there are different cultures, ideas, opinions, but you find the breath is the same. You can have any Muslim, Buddhist, or Christian belief system but the breath is the same.

It's the first physical act you take when exiting the womb. It's the last physical act when consciousness leaves the body at death. It's likely the first instruction given to us by our parents, or by those who attended our birth We were told to “ breathe” and it was the first instruction we gave our children as they were being born. The first cry was the first breath entering the form.

It is the only thing about us that does not change, thoughts change, moods changes, the body changes but the breath doesn't change.

The breath balances the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It detoxifies the body, it balances an

inflamed nervous system. The nervous system is what needs healing in all of us not our True Self. Our ultimate nature, our True Self, our essence, is pure conscience awareness and It is perfect, whole, complete, needs nothing and is everything.

Even in deep dreamless sleep our breath is there. Our ego isn't! As we slip into sleep we leave it all behind, if we are a CEO, a President, a scientist, a rock star, it doesn't matter, all that leaves us and all that is there is our breath and pure consciousness,

When we are angry, breath is there, when peaceful and calm it is there. No matter our mood, our attitude, our disposition, our joy or our pain, it is always there.

Where ever we go, it goes, Do we have to stay in the city of our birth in order to have our breath. No, it is everywhere. There are no restrictions, we are free to go anywhere, we are not tethered to any particular place. Our breath is wherever we are.

With the breath we also create great beauty, through the formation of words of affection, kindness, support and we create beautiful songs that almost take our breath away.

We know how important breath is but we forget it's importance the instant we get stressed, which means we are overwhelmed with fear, and then a shallow breath becomes shallow thinking and shallow breathing creates shallow thinking. We have forgotten how to breathe because of anxiety, tension, and fear. Constricted muscles prevent the deep abdominal breathing the body needs for ultimate alertness. detoxification, and support.

We can truly be supportive to our self when something triggers us, we can go to the breath, when someone uses insulting words toward us, we can go to the breath instead of our programmed reactions. We can go to our breath when a car pulls out in front of us in traffic rather than our programmed reactions. When encountering anything we can go to your breath and let it support us, lift us, carry us, let the breath remind us of how supportive life is of life. When we are breathing we are receiving! Focusing on our breath frees us from reactive conditioned patterns.

Breath in vitality, stillness, wholeness. Allow your awareness to go out to the farthest reaches of the Universe, as far as your imagination will allow you and draw in a breath from there.

The breath quiets the mind, and a quiet mind is the portal to the Divine, to intelligence, to creativity, to intuition and a quiet mind will allow you to make the most wise, intuitive, decisions possible.

Let the breath humble you into surrender to Presence, to the Divine, to the present moment. Allow it to remind you, you are not the conditioned mind. You are the consciousness in which everything arises,

Consciousness, like the breath, is formless, unlimited, non-local, always giving, always supporting,

always saying yes to you,

When we breathe in stillness we are free. Every breath can bring us back to Source. We breathe in the support of the All That Is and All IS WELL as we allow everything to come in and everything to go out at the rate of a breath.