SpacelesS BREATHING

Excerpt from Ivan Rados book The Middle Point

If you systemize your breathing, if you know how to breathe properly, more naturally—your life will become longer, your body younger and healthier, your intelligence higher, and your consciousness purer.

When your body is healthy, breathing has a different quality than when you are ill. By allowing your breathing to be natural and conscious, you are allowing your life—your vital energy, your body chemistry, and your being—to be in equilibrium.

The intake of oxygen makes a huge difference between being healthy and sick. The ill person takes very little oxygen with non-rhythmical and shallow breathing through the mouth, while the healthy person takes in the proper amount of oxygen with natural, rhythmical breathing through the nostrils. Very sick people have to be given oxygen through artificial means. If a sick person is left to themselves, they will simply die.

It’s a matter of vital importance to know how to breathe. The proper method of breathing is to take breath in through the nostrils, though people in all walks of life habitually breathe through the mouth, unconsciously sending a message to the body to be in disharmony. Children are the extensions of us in some way, and when we show them an example of how to breathe unconsciously, they grow up with impaired vitality and weakened constitutions, eventually becoming chronic invalids.

Those who breathe through the mouth while sleeping are more liable to contract contagious pathogens than those who breathe through the nostrils. When breath is taken in through the mouth, the air has a clear track to the lungs. The entire respiratory system is unprotected, without any apparatus to strain the air, catching the dust and other harmful particles. Also, the respiratory system is exposed to the unregulated temperature of the air, resulting in stress on the organs, muscles, and other tissues, which leads to inflammation of the lungs and other organs. This is particularly dangerous when we inhale cold air through the mouth. Also, have you ever awakened at night with a parched feeling in your mouth and dry throat? It’s because you’ve been breathing through your mouth instead of your nostrils.

The organ of respiration has its own filters in the nostrils that serve the purpose of straining the air of its impurities, which are expelled when the breath is exhaled. For those cases in which impurities have accumulated too rapidly or have penetrated regions where they don’t belong, nature produced an intelligent response: the sneeze.

The air inside our lungs needs to be different from the outside air. It needs to be healthy, which means it needs to pass through the natural refining process before it reaches our delicate organs. In a warmer climate, the air is cooled by the nostriles; while in colder climates, it’s warmed. The temperature of the body has to stay in perfect equilibrium, otherwise the body will be in a state of imbalance, leading to all kinds of complications.

Unused nasal passages becomes clogged up and unclean, which means they are likely to lead the body into a state of imbalance, resulting in illness and disease.

Our entire body requires healthy blood. The quality of the blood depends on proper oxygenation in the lungs. If the blood is under-oxygenated, it becomes imbalanced with all sorts of impurities, and our entire system suffers from a lack of proper nutrients. Often the blood, instead of supplying nourishment to our body, is actually poisoning us with waste products that haven’t been processed.

If our stomach lacks oxygen from improper breathing, the food we eat becomes extremely deoxygenated and hence indigestible. Because our system suffers from lack of nourishment, our vigor decreases, our energy diminishes, our appetite fails, and we become prone to all kinds of system failures. This is all from lack of natural breathing.

If the nervous system is improperly nourished by means of the blood, it becomes an inefficient instrument for generating and transmitting our nerve currents. If information isn’t properly distributed through the nervous system, the entire energy network is disrupted. The energy vortexes, known as chakras, experience a depletion of vital energy (the energy of oneness, chi, or the life force). If the chakras are unbalanced, the entire glandular system is impaired, leading to hormonal imbalance and creating disease.

There are no templates for proper breathing. Your individual nature is your template. Breathing should be through the nostrils, in and out, rhythmically and naturally. Breathe through the nostrils and bring consciousness to your breathing. Don’t force the breath. If the breath is used either repressively or aggressively, a particular mood arises in the mind. If you are in your mind, you aren’t conscious, and unconsciousness will lead you to improper breathing.

A person who remains at ease with who and what they are, maintaining the same breathing rhythm, finds their consciousness increasing, gradually resulting in the collapse of the mind structure, together with an end to unhealthy patterns, habits, and unconscious behavior. The mind can’t be involved in proper rhythmical breathing through the nostrils; it can only be involved in unhealthy, improper, unrhythmical patterns of life, including breathing. If the mind isn’t involved in breathing, then the mind won’t be involved in anything else. Consciousness is they key to health. Breathe consciously and you will be healthy.

Use a breathing speed that’s natural and comfortable. There are many rhythms in the body and mind, both gross and subtle, that are linked with the rhythm of your breathing. Changing the rhythm of breath can change the rhythm of the mind and body. Breathe in and out naturally and evenly. Physically we are breathing the oxygen necessary for our bodily functions; but beyond the physical, we are breathing our vitality, chi, prana, the life force. Air is just a vehicle for this vital energy of oneness.

By witnessing the essence of divine breath passing through you, you are preparing yourself to take an existential leap—a transformation from the mundane to the divine. Observe what’s happening—don’t move away from the experience, but start watching your breath. Watch your inhalation through your nostrils, right down into your lungs. Watch the interval that follows at the end of the inhalation, before exhalation starts, because it’s of immense value. Watch your exhalation. Watch a second space that follows at the end of exhalation, before inhalation starts. Watch the breathing cycle, not changing it in any way, just watching the natural rhythm.

As you watch, breathing in and out becomes even, smoother, slower. This slowing comes quite naturally. Allow consciousness to stay wide awake and alert. As your breathing becomes naturally slower and slower, your mind becomes less and less flooded with thought.

Allow thoughts to come and go. Just let thoughts drift away. Don’t have an intention of doing anything with these thoughts—don’t engage them, argue with them, judge them, or push them away. In other words, don’t suppress thoughts and emotions, but rather allow them to melt into nothingness. It’s like watching leaves floating in a river. Remember the flowing nature of all things.