THE BREATH of LIFE

God breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils, and man became a living soul.

— Genesis 2:7 (AV)

Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian author, once wrote a story about a beggar who lived in a hut by the side of a road, living off the few coins and scraps of food that travelers put into his begging bowl. When the old man died, the villagers buried him in a pauper's grave and burned his squalid hut to the ground. While raking through the ashes afterward, they struck something hard and metallic just beneath the earthen floor — and dug out an old treasure chest filled with silver, gold, and precious gems. The unfortunate man had struggled with poverty all his life while sitting just a few inches above a splendid fortune.

Like that beggar, most of us are living in a relative state of ignorance and poverty, unaware of incredible treasures that are closer to us than our breath. The key to unlocking these treasures is the Breath of Life — the spiritual life-force that dwells in our breath. By learning the secrets of breath control, we can master fear, heal diseases, and even become one with God.

The Breath of Life is the greatest of natural wonders. Even more, it is the greatest of all miracles. When I speak about the Breath of Life, I'm referring to the spiritual energy that gives our breath its life-sustaining powers. Our breath carries the life-force much like a car carries its driver. People never confuse a car with its driver, but even those who've studied the powers of the breath tend to confuse the physical breath (or the air they breathe) with the life-force that flows within it.

The spiritual life-force is a ray of pure Divine Consciousness that emanates directly from the Godhead — the formless dimension of reality that is the source of all creation. From the point of view of our spiritual self, this Divine ray is our soul's imperishable link with its Creator. From the point of view of our physical self, it is our direct link with the cosmic energies that give birth to the universe.

The Breath behind the Breath

The Hindu sages recognized the Divine nature of the life-force thousands of years ago. They called it Prana. Since they also used the word prana to designate breath, wind, and air, they sometimes referred to the Pranic life-force as "the Breath behind the breath" to distinguish it from the physical process of breathing or the air we breathe into our lungs.

Because our breath is so closely linked with the life-force, the ancient Hindu masters called the human soul the anu, which means "the one who breathes." They measured the span of a person's life, not in terms of how many years they live, but in terms of the number of breaths they take from the moment they're born until the moment they die. They had observed that when we're born our first action is to breathe in — and that when we die our last action is to breathe out. Did you know that everyone dies on the out-breath?

Because our breath is so intimately linked with the pranic life-force, the Hindu masters teach that God is closer to us than our very own breath. Kabir, one of India's great poet-saints, wrote this humorous and down-to-earth verse to remind his followers that, if they want to know where God is, they needn't look any farther than their breath:

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in Indian shrine rooms,
not in synagogues, not cathedrals,
not in masses, nor sacred songs.
Not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me instantly.
You will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: "Student, tell me, what is God?"
He is the Breath inside the breath.

In the Hindu tradition, God, Prana, and Divine Consciousness are considered to be one and the same. This is why the Hindu sages also call Prana "the Breath of God." They go on to say that God creates the universe with his own breath because the pranic life-force (or Breath of God) is the same as Divine Consciousness in its creative (or moving) aspect.

The Taoist sages of ancient China also recognized the Divine nature of the spiritual life-force that dwells in the breath. They called it Chi. One Taoist text, entitled The Utmost Secrets of the Methods of Breathing, tells us that "[Chi] is the functioning of the Spirits." The Chinese considered this Divine energy to be so indispensable to life that their pictographic symbol for Chi is the same as that for rice — the staff of life in China. To avoid confusing Chi with the physical breath, the Chinese masters sometimes called it the "inner breath" that motivates the "outer breath." This is such a vitally important distinction that one Taoist master warned his disciples:

People confuse the external breath with the internal breath. Those who do breathing exercises ought to be careful ... it is atrocious to mistake one breath for the other.

The Taoists masters rarely use the concept of God to explain the creation of the universe. Nevertheless, like their Hindu counterparts, they teach that the universe is created by a Divine cosmic breath. For example, in the Tao Te Ching the Chinese sage Lao Tzu says: "Tao is the breath that never dies. It is the mother of all creation."

The Spirit of Life

The intimate bond that exists between the spirit of life and the physical breath was also recognized by the ancient Greeks and Romans. For example, the Greeks called the life-force Pneuma. Pneuma has the same range of meanings as prana, and more. It not only refers to breath, air, wind, and the spiritual life-force, it also means "spirit" and "soul." However, its essential meaning was the concept of "Spirit in union with breath." Pneuma is the root of many modern-day English words, such as pneumonia and pneumatic, which refer to the physical breath or the...