Tag: borrowing air to breathe

The 9 Breaths: Breath 8

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3 questions?

1. Why is Breath 7 only for sleep time?

2. What is Prāna?

3. Can we really wake up from the long sleep of death?

Answers:

1. This is a special practice which is most effective if done while you are waiting for sleep to come. This is perhaps the most powerful moment of the day – as you prepare to die. Each sleep is a small death from which we are reborn. As you prepare to fall into sleep, your eyes automatically gravitate towards your Third Eye, the power centre between your eyebrows. If you follow these instructions, you can become not only Master of your Dreams but also Master of Death!

2. We breathe in Air which is, as Science tells us, composed of the vital gases we need to survive on Planet Earth. But it also contains an element of magic which allows us to be vital and to breathe without effort or even consciousness. Prāna is energy from the Cosmos which created you. It is invisible and unmeasurable by the crude mechanisms of Science, but it is your Divine link with the Universe. Shiva’s special way of breathing and thinking about breath connects you with the Universe!

3. Human Beings are energy manifested in flesh and blood. Your origin is spirit, energy, and energy can never be destroyed. It exists eternally. Remember that ‘time’ and ‘space’ are intellectual concepts not reality! Be assured you will always exist and so Shiva teaches you how to live in that special way!! You are in the world of form in order to contribute to the balance of the whole cosmos before you return to the invisible world.

Please visit the series to catch up with today! If you seriously want to make bonds with the Universe, this is a progression, not something you can just dip into! The 9 breaths are published consecutively so they are easy to find here in Nirvana Linden. You can also find them at Niume.com – urls below.

Introduction – https://niume.com/post/264747

Breath 1 – https://niume.com/post/265632

Breath 2 – https://niume.com/post/266432

Breath 3 – https://niume.com/post/267922

Breath 4 – https://niume.com/post/268886

Breath 5 – https://niume.com/post/269810

Breath 6 – https://niume.com/post/271614

Breath 7 – https://niume.com/post/272641

Important points from Breath 7:

* We are going to deeper and deeper levels with each breath. Think of an onion: the peripheral skins and the tender core!

*There are many ways to use your breath in any situation you may find yourself in. You don’t have to go on retreat to a monastery. Daily life is the best spiritual training place of all!

*Prāna is magical. It is contained in each breath if you are devoted sufficiently to it. Attention is exclusive! Awareness is inclusive!

*If you become Master of your Dreams with Breath 7, there will be no more dreams because reality and dreaming will become one!

*We can choose to be either a victim of life or a Master!

*Death is a vital part of life. So embrace it each night as you sleep. It leads to the next stage of spiritual evolution!



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Shiva’s 8th breath requires your utmost devotion.

So far, you have developed a scientific approach to Shiva’s 9 breaths. But now it’s time for you to know the knower!



 

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You may be able to be devoted to a Christ or Krishna, an Einstein or Pythagoras, a Descartes or Renoir. But Shiva demands now that you are devoted to yourself.

Your body is a Divine temple which you have been invited to inhabit during your human stay. It is sacred and holy. And you are not alone in it – the Divine is there too.

Therefore, treat your body form as the abode of the Divine.



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Each intake of breath – the down (in) breath – is received, not only by ‘your’ body but by the Divine.

Each output of breath – the up (out) breath – is witnessed, not only by ‘your’ body but by the Divine.

Each turn of the breath – at the bottom and top of the circle – is experienced, not only by ‘your’ body but also by the Divine.

Do everything in your ‘man-moments’ and in ‘man-space’ with the Divine and as the Divine.

There is no separation!

You are the Divine!

 

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Shiva says:

“With UTMOST devotion, centre on the two junctions of breath and KNOW the KNOWER”

 

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You may consider ‘yourself’ to have a scientific mind, but be certain that science is nothing, is incomplete, without the Knower! And who is ‘you?’ It is only a mundane creation of ephemeral Mind!

This is another opportunity to glimpse the tricky interfering Mind and turn away from it.

It limits you!

It generates fear!

Your TRUE NATURE is unlimited and utterly fearless.

 

Inspiration: Dwell on the notion of the Divine during the day! It is a glorious truth that we are each Divine and each unique, but we are in the process of becoming Divine once more during our training in human form. Interfering Mind will throw a spanner in that naturally turning wheel if you are not mindful.

Surely you want to live in a divine way in your divine body?



 

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Wonderful images courtesy of Linden Thorp and megapixyl.com

See you tomorrow for Breath 9, the final Breath!

 

But don’t worry, I’m going to publish each breath again in the following days so that you get a second chance at uncovering your True Nature and becoming Divine once more!

The 9 Breaths: Breath 1

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Important points to understand from the introduction to this series:

* The 3 layers of the being are: the body, the breath and the soul/spirit/heart.

* Focusing on the breath, sensing it in the abdomen, allows us to both look ahead at worldly/daily life and back towards the heart, our origin, our True Nature.

*Breathing is not taught. It is therefore ultimate and mysterious knowledge. It is every unique being’s secret bond with the universe.

*Due to the infinite kindness of Planet Earth and our masterful biological adaptation, we have unlimited supplies of oxygen to sustain our human life. Only Planet Earth provides the conditions in which we can thrive, ‘here’ and ‘now.’

If you would like to read the Introduction, please go to https://lindenthorp.com/2017/02/23/shivas-mind-turning-techniques/


Background:

These precious techniques are inspired by Shiva, ancient Indian God of ‘Transformation.’ He predates Buddha, providing him with the breathing techniques to become enlightened sitting under the Bodhi Tree 2600 years ago.

Shiva is non-intellectual in his approach, unlike Buddha, so he uses Tantra to help us attain the truth. Tantra is internal in that no conscious changes are needed, unlike Yoga which conscious and systematized using prescribed poses and systems.

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Your breath is a bridge between the body and the universe. If that bridge is weak or broken then we are not really alive. In other words, your breath touches the core of your body and, beyond you, the universe.

Mostly, we take our breathing mostly for granted, assuming that it will continue on without us. Therefore, you are not breathing, because you are not required! Breathing goes on in spite of you!

So, do not consciously change the way you breathe. Breathe exactly as you do usually, but for this purpose you are going to simply watch your breathing as if someone else is breathing and you are observing.



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Feel air or breath touching your nostrils as it enters you. Let it in. Welcome it. Relax your eyes, looking down at the end of your nose, but do not close your eyes completely so you can stay alert.



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Know that your breath follows a circle not parallel lines (which never meet) and you are going to follow that circle keeping exactly simultaneous with it, neither ahead of it nor before it, as you watch.

Go down from the top of the circle with it, staying exactly with it, and then notice the bottom of the circle as you start to go up towards the top again. Both down and up are 1 breath.

Make the circle as large or small as you like. There are no rules and it is impossible to compare your breathing circle with anyone else’s because it is unique.

 

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After watching your breath as the circles come and go, as many times as you like until you are comfortable with this sensation, stopping whenever you like, pause. Shiva says:

 

 

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O Radiant One: the experience of your true self, your True Nature, may dawn between the breath coming down and the breath coming up: in other words, at the top and bottom of your circle as your breath turns.

 

This is the truth! The breath going down is death: the breath coming up is rebirth. Noticing the gap in between allows you to touch the centre of your being and so the universe.

Spending time watching your breath, doing nothing because remember you can breathe without you, allows you to cross the bridge of your body to your soul. You are ‘now’ and ‘here’ each time the breath turns! There is no past! There is no future! There is only your uniqueness in the universe. This is reality!!

You have opened the door to the Kingdom of the Spirit.

 

 

Inspiration: Using breathing we can turn the mind away from compulsive seeking outside, from desperately trying to acquire the knowledge of others, to find our own unique treasure within. We can turn the mind from its habitual desiring to non-desiring.

This now-and-here is our true happiness and contentment.



 

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                                  Images courtesy of megapixyl.com and Linden Thorp

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Join me tomorrow for Breath 2. Please contact me via the comment space below if you have any questions, problems or comments and want to share them with other readers. Or, if you prefer, contact me by email at: lindenthorp@gmail.com

Temple Chronicle: 17th February

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incense smoke

We become absorbed so easily in such trivia, in time-wasting. We even play cards to ‘kill time’ when the universe is frantically beckoning us to open the window and go outside. Our conditioned mind distracts us persistently with a circular unstoppable dialogue which is speculative, judgmental of others, envious, and all manner of negative and distorted views. One of our great talents as a species is our phenomenal memory and our consequent susceptibility to influence which strongly links us together as one energy. Why then do we surround ourselves with trivia and games, with pornography and gambling, frittering away our precious life?

We are utterly impressionable, our unconscious mind a vast storehouse of every instance of our short human life. Our individual identity comprises that storehouse of experience and accumulated knowledge, combined with our genetic inheritance and spirituality.

Everyone around us is ‘killing time.’ It seems that they are killing time until they die, or until the next rite of passage, and the next, and the next. Completing their innings, their social requirements, filling their quota, frittering precious human life away playing chess, completing puzzles, and using frantic thumbs to gather as many red balloons to put in a net on their mobile phone as possible.

Time is a man-made concept and so we have the power and the right to kill it in any way we like. Every human is capable of such aimlessness and potential murder under the control of the conditioned mind. In fact, many of us reserve the power to destroy willfully what we build just as children do. We even destroy what nature has created so arrogant are we.

A Christian story tells that the origin of this phrase ‘killing time’ comes from an American organization (C.L.I.T. – the Cult of the Literal Interpretation of Time) which reacted to the rigid Biblical literalism of New England Protestantism in the 18th century. Their belief was that Time had a literal, physical, tangible body and that he was older or roughly the same age as God the Almighty, and a friend of his. Animosity grew between them when God created the Garden of Eden and Time wanted to seduce Eve instead of Adam. He befriended all the humans in the garden who surprisingly decided they needed the presence of Time to get them through their lives until their deaths. So, members of C.L.I.T., regarding themselves as direct descendants of Adam, wanted literally to kill Time. To achieve this, they lived mindfully, making each moment of their day count, each mundane activity a glorious absorbing event, so that they could murder the tyrant Time.

Mindfulness is the key to living beyond human limitations imposed by the limited conditioned mind. When we have realized that opening our awareness by silencing the conditioned mind transforms our borrowed body into a living temple, we can move through the river of energy marveling at every turn. We can stay fully alive during every instance of our fleshy lives. Then, consciously breathing borrowed breath from the universe in concert with all our species before we close our eyes to sleep, even our dreams will be mindful.

greater awareness