It seems odd to encourage a fifty-year-old person to slow down and breathe normally. Is there anything we can learn from the act of breathing? Taking a breath is a process. Oxygen is essential to life, hence breathing is obligatory. Therefore, it is very important to our day-to-day functioning. There is no need for us to acquire the skills of digestion, hydration, or respiration. All of these occurrences are inevitable and fundamental to life. They follow their intuition and tend to act on impulse. The strongest argument against is this one. Smart people tend to be logical thinkers. But logic may also make natural systems more complicated. Sometimes logic can make things better, but mostly it only makes things worse. In this instance, reason triumphs over experience.
Breathing is easy; breathing properly is a skill. I won’t advise you to make yourself breathe since breathing is something that occurs naturally. I’d like to show you some breathing exercises that might change your life forever. How can we change the way we breathe? When, where, and how are the three most important considerations. These questions are crucial for finding solutions.
The Unpredictability of the Mind
Where exactly should we direct our breath? It’s essential because our very lives depend on it. It might affect our mental and physical well-being. Understanding how the mind works requires an appreciation of the simple act of breathing. We can’t stop breathing since it’s crucial to our survival. The individual keeps breathing whether he’s awake or asleep. The act of breathing is a constant companion. We say a shadow follows us around, but I have trouble believing it. Shadows are only present during the day. Since there is no light, there are no shadows. The breath is with us whether the sky is blue or not.
The relationship between respiration and the body goes beyond the superficial. It has to do with the structure of our brains as well. The effects of breathing on the brain are more substantial. If you can’t control your breathing, you can’t control your thoughts.
I was only recently questioned by doctors. The subtitle of the book you wrote reads, “Who says the mind is fickle?” (Kisne kaha mann chanchal hu). Why are you looking for this other explanation? Do mental states not tend to fluctuate constantly? The mind inevitably wavers, according to the teachings of other Acharyas; do you disagree with this?
I emphasized that I was not trying to disprove the insights of the sages of old. If the light is on and the fan is running, it’s because you’re a medical professional. You clearly know your science. It’s moving so fast that a sphere can be made out rather than individual fan blades, demonstrating just how fast it is. It seems that the blades have disappeared. It’s lightning fast and full of energy! I’d be totally off base if I said the supporter was wavering and inconsistent. For the simple reason that the fan won’t spin without power running through it. As soon as the power is turned off, deterioration sets in. If you turn off the electricity or the switch, the fan will cease whirling. In what do you classify the fan’s present condition? Quiet? Changing? The fan may be thought of as neither static nor dynamic. A basic musical tool. But if anything pushes against it, it will start to move.
Holding the item in my hand and waving it about will alert the person to the fact that it is movable, which will help me get an answer to my question regarding its condition. If I put it on the floor, it immediately stops operating. Do I have faith in the material? Is it accurate to suggest the fan is unpredictable? These occurrences of motion are prompted by external factors. The state of mind is no more stable than the external environment. A basic musical tool. The discrepancy has another, unknown source.
Those folks will simply impose their beliefs on you without making any effort to understand what you’re saying. Again, this is a supposition without any proof to back it up. I’ve finished talking with the doctors. As the words began to make sense to them, their perplexity vanished.
When does sanity begin to fail? Since it is found in a number of religious texts, we accept it at face value. According to the Utraadhyan sutra, the mind is like an untamed horse. Keshi, a monk, prayed aloud while he spoke with Gautam Swami: “Lord! The mind is like a wild horse, full of surprises and potential danger for the rider. Then why do you feel like you’ve reached a plateau? Doesn’t it make you want to run away? The Gita also recognizes that mental states are subject to change. It is mentioned in both the Vedas and Buddhism. I still don’t get why I brought up a whole new issue that might cause people to reject your argument.
Vata and Emotions
I hope the truth will set you free. The mind is unstable because of vata (air) and the emotions (anger, ego, maya (deceit), and aggression). All of one’s passions are learned. According to the Jain worldview, that’s what we’d call karma. In modern parlance, it might be thought of as repressed impulses deep inside our subconscious. Over the course of our lives, we’ve accumulated a lot of negative karma, and it’s just getting worse. Our mental stability is threatened when these karma particles become active. When these karmic imprints become real, the mind begins to spin faster than a fan. Some individuals, depending on the strength of their karmic influences, might become quite worried and disturbed. They have more thoughts in a day than they normally would in a year. It’s perpetual, like a whirling motion in a circle. Just a natural consequence of our previous behaviour. The subject of how previous actions affect the present is an obvious one to consider in this light. An illustration will help clarify this point. The potter spins the wheel with his hands. The hamster wheel will keep turning even if he stops turning it. We’ve amassed some serious bad karma, and the results of our deeds are still catching up with us.
The second factor is air (vata). When Vata is elevated, things become more changeable. There are three primary components, or doshas, in the human body, according to Ayurveda: vata (air), pitta (fire and water), and kapha (water and earth). A kapha person is materialistic, a pitta person is quick to anger, and a vata person is changeable and quick to chatter. In Ayurveda, there is a well-known Shloka:
Pangu kaphah pangu, pangavah sarvadhatavah;
Vayunah yatra niyante, tatra gachhanthi te yatha .
This means that whereas vata has no movement constraints, pitta and kapha do. As the vata winds carry them, they wander. Because vata dosha is so dominant in our body, we are prone to erratic mood swings. Dosha-specific symptoms may emerge if any of the three factors is out of balance. Vehicles may be propelled into the air and flung about by the gusty winds of reality. A few years back, a typhoon ripped over Assam, sending bullock carts careening through the air and becoming caught in the trees. You can’t discount air’s tenacity. Our planet’s volatility may be traced back to the air we breathe. Our mental steadiness is disturbed. What precisely is inhalation? Forced oxygenation of the air. It’s an unsteady factor that contributes to our irrationality. The air supply should be checked first. The quality of the air we breathe has an impact on our mental and emotional health as well. If you’re having trouble breathing, you haven’t mastered emotional regulation. Their emotional wellbeing may be negatively impacted. How and why do people get angry? The root cause of Es rotate’s fury is his inability to breathe properly. When we inhale rapidly, we are more likely to feel disturbed, yet when we breathe slowly, anger is more difficult to develop. When we breathe less deeply, carbon dioxide and oxygen build up, which might make us feel agitated.
Tiny but Mighty
The breath plays a crucial role in religious practice. What precisely has the religious establishment been up to? More of our attention was paid to the ‘bigger’ concepts of Soul and God. A look into previous lives and reincarnation. These are lofty intellectual concepts, and religious leaders have devoted almost all of their attention to them. A sole concentration on resolving the ‘bigger’ mysteries and posing overly intricate issues with no clear relation to how we live has led to a disregard for the essential notions of religion. A structure with a weak foundation won’t last. The same thing happened in religious communities when fanciful ideas began to take precedence over fundamental tenets. The details, although subtle, were essential, yet we failed to see them.
Lord Mahavira didn’t even try to simplify deep philosophical concepts in his talks. He explained in great detail how to move stealthily. His primary focus was on grammatical correctness. A good night’s sleep include. Where do people usually sit? If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering why Lord Mahavir would waste time explaining how to sleep. Lord Mahavira’s excellence may be attributed to his keen eye for detail. Nothing was ever overstated or understated by him.
After reading his works, it became clear to me that Mahatma Gandhi belonged to the small group of world leaders who advocated paying Boch are e to the smallest of details. Once upon a time, an Ashrama-dwelling sibling provided a twig for the purpose of brushing one’s teeth. Expressions like “Oh! Why did you take so many sprigs? You just need a little quantity, but you went and broke the whole thing instead. Branches from trees are often broken off and picked at by curious onlookers. But Gandhiji was concerned about even the tiniest amounts of waste.
Someone or something once dragged a bed across the room. Before moving the bed, Gandhiji suggested the person check the area for any living organisms.
Most individuals wouldn’t bat an eye if they stepped on a living creature by mistake. They wonder why this is such a huge deal. They believe that only the bored and unemployed would care about something so inconsequential. That would make Lord Mahavira and Mahatma Gandhi, two of the greatest Acharyas in history, fools.
Everything in life is made up of little things. The sum of many little things is greater than the whole. It is a mistake to give all the credit to one catalyst. It saddens me that breathing is no longer a priority in the religious community. People have difficulty concentrating, are reluctant to quit habitual behaviours, and cannot control their emotions. One who easily loses their temper is called “short fused.” Nothing has changed at all. Although the issue has received more attention thanks to the media, little has really changed. If you want to focus, you need to get rid of those two things. Then and only then can change occur. One is learning to regulate one’s breathing, and the other is mastering one’s reactions to previous karmic urges. It has been suggested that breathing exercises might help balance vata dosha. Both are equally important.
How to Master Your Breath
The question then arises, how precisely can we train ourselves to control the air inside our bodies? The first phase of mudita meditation consists of deep, steady breathing. It’s beneficial to take longer, deeper breaths at a slower rate. The typical rate of breathing is 16 breaths per minute, but we know that this increases with physical exertion and emotional tension. A person’s breathing rate increases from 20 to 30 breaths per minute when they are angry.
A person’s breathing rate rises from 60 to 90 breaths per minute during a brahmacharya, or sexual pleasure. Taking shallower breaths causes a buildup of carbon dioxide, which is toxic to the body. Deep, leisurely breathing, on the other hand, may be quite beneficial. Better concentration is the end outcome. When one’s breathing rate drops to five breaths per minute, that individual has achieved mental mastery. You aren’t experiencing any heaviness at all. The individual feels a wave of peace and satisfaction.
One’s breathing pattern might be shallow and rapid, or it can be deep and sustained. When breathing is normal, everything flows smoothly, but if it becomes shallow, problems arise. We could find creative solutions to perplexing problems if we learn to slow down and breathe deeply. Mental and physical health issues are resolved. Our metabolisms speed up, our immune systems fortify, our stress levels fall, and the quality of our sleep improves.
I’m tackling a massive and critical question: how one should breathe. I’ve barely begun to explore this enormous topic. Research is necessary to learn the mechanics of breathing. The medical establishment knows very little about breathing. For instance, they won’t grasp why it’s typical to release cool air through one nostril and warm air through the other while breathing out. If you breathe in via your right nostril for around 30 seconds, you may experience this feeling. What our yoga masters and Acharyas know about breathwork is still largely unexplained by modern science.
After reading this, you will be inspired to learn about breathing methods and make changes in your life.
