Like many people here I believe that breath is a key to the spirit and the greater unseen universe. As others have mentioned, there are many universal references equating spirit with breath and I would like to add a couple more. The Dineh (navajo) have a word for holy wind that is synonymous with "breath". It means something like "the wind of creation that pervades the cosmos. Anyhow, a very beautiful metaphorical view as I remember it.

Now we go south to the Aztecs and Quetzalcoatl who was apparently the creator of humans as we are in our present form. Just so happens he was also the god of wind. I never thought this too significant until I began to notice that most natives of the Americas equate wind as Breath of Life.

This idea of breath and life force seems to be universal in cultures the world over and it resonates with me personally but theres another seemingly essential element that has been nagging me lately and that would be spirals. Or more precisely, the spiral motion. I've been enchanted with spirals for a while now, ever since I had an experience where I dropped into a meditative state by accident while sitting near a small canyon stream. I had an extraordinary feeling of a slow turning/spiral motion that animated and suspended all life in a fine balance. The experience only lasted a few glorious minutes but it absolutely crushed me. My intuitive heart knew I had felt the motion of Tao. Or Chi, Prana, whatever.

Sooo... I've been trying a little bit to connect some dots, thinking about spirals on the macro and micro, inner and outer scale and how it relates to breath. One interesting thing I found was that in Latin "spiro" means breath and it also has a separate definition meaning "spiral" or coiled. I feel like I'm on the edge of some profound insight here (for me) but I feel a bit beyond my simple earth centered element. I have some wisdom, but I'm not much of a scholar in these areas and would appreciate hearing some different perspectives on the subject or experiences anyone could relate. So much wondrous mystery . Peace,
Agave

Sweet.

Thanks Agave for bringing this discussion over here. As profound a topic as it is, it didn't really need to be a mere tangent on the voluminous Spirit and Psychedelics thread.

[starting about with this post https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=447339#post447339 for those who weren't privy]

I really appreciate the Native American and Meso-American additions to what is clearly a worldwide universal linguistic key. The Dineh concept of Holy Breath reminds me of the Kabbalistic concept of the Holy Spirit (Ruach Ha'Kodesh).

Do you know the actual word? I for one would be happy to know it. Having spent some time on Dineh and Hopi land way back in the day, I have an appreciation for those people and their struggles. (Google Peabody Coal Mine and Black Mesa if you wanna feel a bit shittier one day)

I really like where you are going with this spiral connection. Spiral motion is clearly one of the major flows that this life energy employs. You see it everywhere. In my internal arts systems, it is omnipresent. Spiral motion is basically screaming from nearly every movement in Pa-Kua.

There is certainly some profound insight to be gleaned from following this strand of the web where it may lead. If you are not already familiar with the Golden Mean (Golden Ratio)/ Phi/ Fibonacci Sequences etc. and their lovely spirals... I highly recommend checking that stuff out. This video is not the best one out there or anything, but it is short and gives a decent intro:



I look forward to where this thread might progress. The conversation so far already has me grinning.

HF

Yes, I wholly agree, as we have begun to segue into another topic, altogether. And while they are intricately interwoven aspects of The One, this specific aspect deserves it's own place, as a primary topic. And I share HP's enthusiasm, as this thread has already put a big smile in my heart!

And while the Spirit interacts with all forms, thus manifesting it's enigmatic quintessence directly, for we human beings, breath is the most all-pervasive and immediate companion, in the material paradigm we cohabitate within. And when the breathe of the Divine is expelled, which initiates the cosmos we inhabit (quantum fluctuations), it is an expression of the Word made manifest, as existence and consciousness.

The Sufis believe that the insubstantial, formless aspect of Allah, is substantiated into form, by the breath of Divine creativity. From my limited knowledge of the tradition, but of course. Hence, the expression, La Ilaha Il Allah Hu. There is no God but Allah. The Hu at the end, is related to the immanent expression, direct revelation and limitless substantiation of Allah within all things. He is here/God is here/everything is One. It is the Divine exhalation, in a manner of speaking, the Word made manifest as all that exists.

And by drawing this allegory, I am suggesting a direct symbiosis betwixt the Breath of Life and the Word made manifest. So, we come very, very, very close to what to myself, has always been one the most profound of realities... speech is an extension of breath itself, as it is an exhalation producing sonic vibrations. It could be maintained that, Spiritus=Breath and Breath=The Word. And if one follows this line of thought, one could well imagine the interrelationship between inhalation and inspiration and direct eclipsing with Gnosis.

One hardly needs to think long about it, before the idea arises that there exists a vital link between smoking Sacred substances, breathing and Sacred revelations. Inhalation is just one form of absorptions, surely, but it is through our receptivity to the Pranic force, inherent within the air we breathe, that we integrate the process of awakening to the present moment, the here and now, in all it's resplendent glory.

And while it might be tempting to go down that rabbit hole, whereby we must surrender to the reality that even as we focus upon this present moment of the here & now, it evades our grasp, as it squiggles freely out of the dynamics of the time-space-continuum, replaced by yet another here & now moment, which ceaselessly changes into another here & now, without ever truly doing anything or moving at all. How's that for a run-on sentence?

The only constant is change, after all. Still, despite the endless transformation of the nature of realty unfolding, behind the ever-changing appearances, The Unified Field effulgently shines. For it is perhaps only we who appear to exist in a sequential paradigm? And I would like to echo an intriguing idea that Hyperspace Fool brought up in another thread, that of zeroing-in on the emptiness between breaths. Therein lies an eternity itself!

And even more minutely, the pause and infinite Void between heartbeats. As when we become free of the constraints of the limitations of time, we are able to exist consciously, within that zero point of being, that insubstantial plane which has no recognizable features or definitive substance. But do I digress from the OP by doing so? That may be another thread topic in it's own right, eh?

But with or without entheogens, we can learn much form our simple act of breathing. I am psyched to hear what all of you fine folks have to share about this miraculous phenomenon. Also, I am curious just how many of you good people use breathing in your meditation practice? Either as pranayama or watching one's breath, as a method to access direct immersion in to higher levels of conscious-awareness.

I personally began this whole trip by applying the Seon Buddhist method of watching one's breath. It was, frankly, too much for my 15 year old mind. I needed something more substantial to tame the wild beast of my adolescent psyche. I gravitated to mantra repetition, creative visualizations and yantra meditation. Pranayama exercises kinda brought me full-circle, back to simply watching my breath flow as it will.

Somewhere in the fusion of trying to control and giving up any control,... I found my own way. Kriya Yoga deals a lot with various forms of pranayama and at the apex of the incremental unfolding, the breathless state is experienced. Of course, this inter-phase is outside of the time-space-continuum, so it's impossible to measure it by our usual sequential standards.

Even in small doses, moments spent is such a beatific stasis, are quite life changing. We consciously touch what has been an unconscious automation, realize that it's all about energy flow and revitalization, and awaken to the vital importance of the breath.

Thus, even when poised at such a point of internal stillness, IME, the prana directly enters the auric body through the portal of the Ajna, the 3rd eye, and is absorbed through the receptor of the pineal gland, where it is infused exponentially deeper into the core of our awareness, seated within the crown center, Sahasrara or thousand Petaled Lotus.

The rest is simple math, we go into states of Samadhi/Satori/Divine Rapture. Sure, the lungs endlessly need to continue to inflate and deflate... but these pauses, these peak experiences teach us a whole lot about how cosmic energy dances through our organism. Psychedelics have only re-enforced my belief in these experiences. Thoughts?

I know with all my pharma and ayahuasca jouneys, I always take long deep breaths. I pretty much do it the entire time. I've never thrown up from ayahuasca or pharma, and I think it might be due to slowing ones breating, and taking deep breaths and/or focusing on the breath. I've taken large doses of vine and never got the urge to be sick due to deep breathing/focus. Id notice, also that if Id stop focusing on my breath and stopped taking long deep breaths, the urge to throw up would come back a millionfold. I was told repeatedly throughout afew of my journeys to keep a long, deep breath and ALL will be well, for breath controls everything. So every time I go the oral route, I always keep focused on my breathing.

Mind you, I never fought the urge of throwing up, I would just simply start breathing long n' deep and keep my focus, and there would be absolutely no physical discomfort.

Much love,

tat

Hi HP, that Navajo word for holy wind is Nilch'i. I had to do some digging to find it and then I found this little blurb on a google search that sums it up briefly. Interesting to note that coincidently, the last three letters end in chi. Which by the description seems very similar.

http://www.hanksville.org/voyage/navajo/wind.php3

Thanks for the short vid. I am a tiny bit familiar with the golden mean but it just became a lot more interested. There can surely be some clues in there. Definitely like how the double helix of DNA figures in.

RS, You touch upon so many fascinating topics that it's hard to keep up with you. But, yes, yes, yes, when breath extends to speech or sonic vibration it opens up a whole new dimension. I too have thought about inhalation as inspiration or creation, But what takes me deeper and into my center is the exhalation. The secret to breath though, may actually be the pause in between. For a moment, floating free where one can almost grasp the concept of non-existence. I've only been practicing real daily meditation for about two years now, but I found it easiest to begin with repetitive mantra. After a while I was able to focus on the breath and I also usually do a "mountain" visualization at the beginning of the session. It's seems to be what works .

So yes, breathing seems to be the very definition of presence, and I think that figures in greatly to what Tat says about keeping it together by focussed breathing. You can stay strong and balanced in your center, though for me, it is in the long exhale that brings it all home and keeps me grounded.

Nilch'i

I like.

Thank you. Nil Chi

Keep the bellows blowing...