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Breath is Time

From the Bhakti List Archives

Balaraman M Sriram • October 2, 1998 


Dear Sri Vaishnavas,

I found this article when browsing, it has some interesting points
about breathing and food .

adiyEn,

sriram,balaraman

Breath is Time
****************


That which is real is the respiration, say Sanskrit texts. A respiration 
consists of two halves, an inhalation and an exhalation. The obstacles 
to   Sun-Moon respiration, or equipose-breathing, are caused by 
conditioning. 


Food is of three types 

* impressions 
* breath
* edibles.

Just as without food we are starved and die, and without oxygen we 
suffocate, so without impressions we could not survive. Wrong food 
affects us, faulty breathing  starves the blood of oxygen, lack of 
impressions causes  physiological disturbance.

Relating our own body to cosmology, 

Our earth centre, our physical or planetary body, is sustained by food. 

Our emotional centre (Sol) is sustained by breath. 

Our intellectual centre  (Moon) is sustained by impressions.

Speech is breath modulated by the physical organism in various ways  
depth of breathing, muscle tension, shape of mouth, shape of mental 
impressions. The Indian measure is that 10 long syllables make 1 breath. 
There are smaller subdivisions of time ending  with the paramanu -- this 
is related to the time taken to sense an impression.


Words are said to have a delusive nature (Mahamaya Matrika) because the 
word itself, although  it may contain a reference to an object is often  
surrounded by clusters or  Kulas of lesser Shaktis, These lesser Shaktis  
themselves indicate other references to  objects. These Shaktis are what 
are called 'associations of thought', clusters of sense  impressions, 
connected perhaps by links which are unique to an individual.


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