During my time in Varanasi, I used to take early morning walks daily. I used to stroll along the ghats and see the sky turn from purple to red and orange. The mantras reverberating around the ghats, the rising sun burning the sky, and the golden glitter in the shimmering waters almost always filled me with gratitude. And during those walks, I got to know a few monks … from 9-year-olds to 90-year-olds. And almost every monk that I’ve met during those walks told me that the most important thing in life is the ability to make breath our best friend. That according to them and me is the most important lesson in our lives.
Why? Because it’s the only thing that stays with you from birth to death. The only thing that’s constant is breath. Everything else changes … relationships, work, wealth, health, beliefs, thoughts. Nothing … absolutely nothing stays the same. Even the pattern of how you breathe changes … but not breath itself.
Every emotion that you feel changes how you breathe … the intensity of your activity changes how you breathe … how you react to situations and to other people changes how you breathe. Once you are aware of how you breathe and how it changes with every activity, every thought, every reaction, every emotion … you can develop the ability to control it. And when you develop the ability to control it you develop the ability to control your life. When you learn how to navigate and control your breath … you learn how to navigate and be in control of your life. You move from a position of life controlling you to you being in control of your life.
This has been known since the days of Bhagavad-Gītā where it is said “Some [yogis] channelize their vital life breaths, the prana and apana. They concentrate on breath-restraint.”
“Then,” writes Patañjali in Yoga sūtras “the covering of the illumination [of knowledge] is weakened.”
I’ve now made it my life’s goal to share this wealth of knowledge to anyone who wants to learn. I’m grateful to all my teachers who have taught me how to breathe. And I’ve experienced great joy in sharing with others what I’ve known and as a result seeing all of us grow together to become better individuals.
I feel this knowledge is truly going global now. I recently came across this awesome video by Jay Shetty and my thoughts resonated with what he was saying almost instantly. And all that I had learned about breath … from my adolescence to the present moment came together. Take a few moments from your life and watch this video. It may just change your life. 🙂
