Monday 14 March 2011

being aware of your breath

i have been monitoring the different levels of meditation possible for me to explore and, joyously, something new came up this morning, from insight received from a book i am reading.

it is about being aware of the breath. when one inhales a deep breath, one is aware of taking a deep breath... when one exhales a deep breath, one is again aware of exhaling a deep breath.

then we conceive breathing as a phenomenon of the body; we keep on conceiving breathing as a phenomenon of the body. we find our entire body breathing...

then we conceive breathing as a phenomenon of the mind; we keep on conceiving breathing as a phenomenon of the mind. we find our entire mind breathing...

then we conceive breathing as a phenomenon of our sensuality; we keep on conceiving breathing as a phenomenon of our sensuality. we find ourselves breathing with all five senses of our being...

breathing is a phenomenon that takes place "here and now," the awareness of which fixes us totally to the place and the moment.

the here-now feeling...
with the breathing conceived and realised as a phenomenon of the body, mind and sensuality...
and with the awareness that breathing is the truth of what is here and now,
we breathe on and touch another level of meditation.

*****

10 comments:

Arun Meethale Chirakkal said...

I wanna try this, a couple of times when I tried to do deep breathing, I experienced how fast the mind gets 'disciplined'!

P. Venugopal said...

try this, Arun. you can become intoxicated without taking your usual quota of the day!
the thing is you gain total control of your body, mind and 'indriyas.' you put all these three aspects of your personality in tune with the breath and when you carry them together for some time in the morning, the whole day you are tuned at a higher plane than your usual plane. it is like using a thampuru to tune to the right note when you start singing.

Pranavam Ravikumar said...

Nice Post...! Thanks for sharing.

P. Venugopal said...

thanks, Ravikumar!

Prabhakar said...

Venu, I plan to try it during my morning ground exercises. This is something like returning to the basics.

P. Venugopal said...

like returning to the basics, isn't it?
it is difficult to imagine the levels to which meditation stretches. it is beyond levels...is what infinity is...infinite void is...the 'is' that is unimaginable and unfathomable is.

kochuthresiamma p .j said...

very interesting post. i've been for sometime interested in te curative effect of disciplined breathing. it's even medically recommended.been reading, browsing on this - yet to put to practice on a regular basis.
what do you think of guru ramdev's method?
btw, i've uploaded 19 chapters of my e novel.thanks for the very encouraging comments.

Sorcerer said...

Yeah..I think I missed a couple of posts here.
Will surely read it.

We discussed in person about exactly the same thing.
It was a great day for me having spend an awesome time with you and cool conversations.
:)
Rock on!!

P. Venugopal said...

madam, as i had said earlier, i am actually a novice in this area. i searched out details of Guru Ramdev's method on the net and feel he should be knowing what he is teaching.
i beleive in the curative possibilites of disciplined breathing. it is not to be approached as a mechanical thing. we should listen to what is happening, monitor the impact and navigate through the experience.
i have found the method described in this peice a new experience. when one conceives breathing as a phenomenon of the body and listens to breathing for some time, the entire body seems to involve in the process of breathing. the body becomes light and relaxed. a kind of translucence sets in... similarly we can carry our mind with our breathing and experience a kind of serenity setting in... we can also carry our sensory perceptions with our breathing...for instance, i have tried carrying my sense of taste with my breathing...
this is a vague thought, but what i think is that, when we tune ourselves to our breathing--body, mind and sensuality--we find within our reach a capacity to navigate our way to the free spaces... we are in control, we can exercise our will to even cure.

P. Venugopal said...

sorcy, we shall talk.