Breath

There are many similarities in Vedic and Biblical stories of creation.

God is Creator in the Book of Genesis and the Supreme Being (“Brahma”) in the Vedas. In both traditions the Creator transcends the entire universe while bringing forth all life and beings, animate and inanimate. Every religious tradition we know describes the human being as the pinnacle of the process of creation, the most advanced of all living beings on earth.

In the Biblical story, God first created heaven and earth, the seas and the air, the fishes, fowls, herbs and plants and all living creatures in six days, and seeing that it was good ended all this work on the (symbolic) seventh day with rest. And then,

...the Lord God formed man (Adam) of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  Genesis 2:7

The name “Adam” derives from a combination of “adi,” meaning first, and “aham,” or “ahong,” meaning “I-consciousness.” Adam thus became the first manifested self-consciousness as he drew in God’s imparted breath-of-life. This is similarly stated in the Qur’an:

I breathed into humanity something of my own spirit. Qur’an 38:72

Yet reading “God breathed” only begs the greater persisting philosophical question: How? Exactly what is God’s breath? The profound answer to that question is what strikingly distinguishes the Vedic and Upanishadic thought in several ways, the foremost being that breath existed BEFORE creation itself, i.e., without extraneous breath, as the One Existent, without a second:

In the beginning,

Before there was existence or nonexistence,
Before there was sky or atmosphere above,
Before there was birth, death or immortality,
Day or night, light or darkness. . .
Only the One Existent breathed calmly. . .
self-contained, with nothing beyond. Rig Veda

From that Absolute Being comes the cosmic manifestation of Breath.

The Breath of God and Pranayam

To that God we dedicate our life,
Who is the giver of life’s breath, power and vigor;
Whose command all the divine powers obey;
Who rules whatever breathes, moves or is still;
Who is the God of all created beings.

Atharva Veda

“To live is to breathe” is to assert the obvious. We do not need medical science to tell us that the whole marvelous mechanism of the human body stops when breath departs. Otherwise stated, however perfect the physical body is, with the absence of breath it is but a corpse. Yet there is more to know about breathing than the obvious, and from the spiritual heritage of Yoga comes the invitation to learn to expand what it is “to live.”

Isn’t it enough, you might think, just to breathe and to be grateful to be alive, whatever one’s circumstances or age? Well, if to “breathe and let breathe” is enough for you, then the subject of this book is not going to hold your interest.

Admittedly, for many people, “to breathe” simply designates that process of air going into the lungs expanding to receive oxygen and then contracting to expel carbon dioxide. Yet the process of breathing, as we will see, involves our entire body, its energies and more, circulating throughout our entire being as various simultaneous waves, arising and falling. Also, breathing is more than what happens physically as you inhale and exhale, and it does not even originate from your lungs.

Most people will duly appreciate that breathing keeps the lungs, brain and organs functioning while maintaining all the attendant functions of digestion, circulation and movement. They know that improving breathing improves health. Although fitness watches remind their wearers regularly to mindfully take deep breaths, such attentions are still comparatively superficial, ignoring more sublime meaningful potential! Unfortunately, theologians do not develop the importance of breath as essential to one’s spiritual life. Some say that scriptural knowledge is important, some that prayer is, others that faith is, and others that ritual is, but that the knowledge of breath is of essential importance is likely to be disregarded or deemed unnecessary.

You have been breathing from your first day on earth. You are breathing now as you read this, and you will breathe for as long as you live as human. Most of the time you will not think about breathing, and yet, when methodically and meditatively breathing you will find yourself attuned to, inspired by and empowered by the most sublime wisdom ever known to human minds! Your own mental powers of Contentment and Peace, Power and Universality will grow.

Although many creatures breathe, we humans, in relation to our breath, are unique. The Old Testament’s Book of Genesis asserts that there is a special and purposeful link with God through the breath, as “God breathed the breath of life in the nostrils of man.” Note that the pronouncement in Genesis occurs only after the creation of heaven and hell, after the creation of earth and skies, after creation of days and nights — in fact after all living components of nature are created. A profound point derives from that single statement.

That God breathes at all is something we might further wonder about since God’s breath would certainly not involve lungs ... nor inhaling and exhaling. In what, then, does God’s breath consist? God’s breath must and can only be the breath of life itself, as Breath and Life are inexorably linked together. Why, then, the specific mention of “the nostrils of man”? Ah, we shall see ... The knowledge will be both practicable as well as illuminating.

Srimati Kamala “Swami Kamalananda,” The Breath of God and Pranayam