first breathe in then breathe out

First breathe in

Then breathe out

Of course, we do not really need instruction on how to breathe. We don't need to think about it. It happens quite naturally. And anything that happens quite naturally gives us a feeling of being at ease in ourself, at ease in the world. Nevertheless, it can be useful to bring our full awareness to an activity like breathing.

It is very satisfying to take a full breath. And the relaxation that comes with that out-breath is even deeper if the in-breath was as full as possible. The two are related, aren't they? How much we breathe in determines how much we can breathe out. And I'm talking about this today because the simple act of breathing in and then breathing out is a metaphor for our spiritual life. It can be a metaphor for every moment. We receive the moment, and then we let it go. And if we don't let it go, there's no space for the next moment, just as if we do not breathe out, then there's no space in our lungs for the next in-breath.

And what do I mean when we say we let go of the moment? We simply drop it. We don't start thinking about it. We don't carry it with us. If the mind becomes busy with a moment, if your awareness is on the thoughts about that moment, that moment that has passed, then in that thinking process you are missing this moment. So just as it would kill you to hold on to your breath for more than a few seconds or a few minutes, so if we think too much, it is killing us in a way. It is robbing us of life because life is lived in this moment, with awareness fully on this moment right now. And the more we are thinking about something past, even if it was only a few moments ago, the more we do that, the more we miss life.

So just as we breathe in and out and keep breathing in and out, so we should keep receiving and letting go of the moments. And the same can be said of the days. However rich and wonderful your day is, when it is time to sleep, let go of it – with gratitude for the day that you have enjoyed, but no need to carry it with you into your dreams, no need to wake up tomorrow thinking of today. Just as we can miss moments, we can also miss whole days if we are too tied up with the past.

But more than the moment to moment and day to day analogy, for me, taking one deep in-breath, and then breathing out fully, is symbolic, is a metaphor, for our whole spiritual endeavour. We need to breathe in fully, and by that I mean we need to bring all our energy together in our being in an integrated form. Usually we live life dispersed all over the place, really, with very complicated lives, our energies reaching out left, right and centre, things being thrown at us from every direction. It's too chaotic. So when I say breathe in, I mean take time to sit quietly and bring all our energy together into our being, into a single point in our being. And when we can do that without dispersion, without fragmentation, when we can really hold our energy, still at a single point within us, an infinitesimal point, it's as if that energy reaches an incredible level because it's so concentrated. Only when we can do that are we really in the place where we are ready to let go. That is the breathing out. We simply surrender ourself to existence. 

So first we need to collect ourself, that's the in-breath. It's a bringing of our energies together, collecting ourself, concentrating our energy. And then there is the letting go, the breathing out, the surrender, the disappearance of the self into the greater cosmos, the oceanic consciousness, the source.