After all ,all life is just breath

[srkmish]

I am going to start this thread by a speech form OSHO,the great enlightened master

Natural breathing has to be understood. Watch small children, they breathe naturally. That's why small children are so full of energy. The parents are tired, but they are not tired.

One child was saying to another child, "I am so full of energy that I wear out my shoes within seven days." Another said, "That's nothing. I am so full of energy I wear out my clothes within three days."

The third said, "That too is nothing. I am so full of energy I wear out my parents within one hour."

In America they have done an experiment where one very powerful man, with an athletic body, with tremendous energy, was told to follow a small child and imitate him. Whatsoever the child was going to do, this athlete had to do, just imitate for eight hours. Within four hours the athlete was gone, flat on the floor, because the child enjoyed it very much and he started doing many things -- jumping, jogging, shouting, yelling. And the athlete had to just repeat. The child was perfectly full of energy after four hours. The athlete was gone; he said, "He will kill me. Eight hours! Finished! I cannot do anything more." He was a great boxer, but boxing is one thing. You cannot compete with a child.

From where does the energy come? It comes from pranamaya kosha. A child breathes naturally, and of course breathes more prana in, more chi in, and accumulates it in his belly. The belly is the accumulating place, the reservoir. Watch a child; that is the right way to breathe. When a child breathes, his chest is completely unaffected. His belly goes up and down. He breathes as if from the belly. All children have a little belly; that belly is there because of their breathing and the reservoir of energy.

That is the right way to breathe; remember not to use your chest too much. Sometimes it can be used -- in emergency periods. You are running to save your life; then the chest can be used. It is an emergency device. Then you can use shallow, fast breathing, and run. But ordinarily the chest should not be used. And one thing to be remembered: the chest is meant only for emergency situations because it is difficult in an emergency situation to breathe naturally, because if you breathe naturally you remain so calm and quiet you cannot run, you cannot fight. You are so calm and collected you are buddhalike. And in an emergency -- the house is on fire -- if you breathe naturally you will not be able to save anything. Or a tiger jumps upon you in a forest and if you go on breathing naturally you will not be bothered; you will say, "Okay, let him do whatsoever he wants." You will not be able to protect yourself.

So nature has given an emergency device; the chest is an emergency device. When a tiger attacks you, you have to drop natural breathing and you have to breathe from the chest. Then you will have more capacity to run, to fight, to burn energy fast. And in an emergency situation there are only two alternatives -- flight or fight. Both need a very shallow but intense energy -- shallow, but a very disturbed, tense state.

Now if you continuously breathe from the chest, you will have tensions in your mind. If you continuously breathe from the chest, you will always be afraid. Because the chest breathing is meant to be only in fearful situations. And if you have made it a habit then you will be continuously afraid, tense, always in flight. The enemy is not there, but you will imagine the enemy is there. That's how paranoia is created.

In the West also a few people have come across this phenomenon -- Alexander Lowen or other bioenergetic people who have been working on bioenergy. That is prana. They have come to feel that people who are afraid, their chest is tense and they are breathing very shallow breaths. If their breathing can be made deeper, to go and touch the belly, the hara center, then their fear disappears. If their musculature can be relaxed, as it is done in Rolfing.... Ida Rolf has invented one of the most beautiful methods to change the inner structure of the body. Because if you have been breathing wrongly for many years, you have developed a musculature, and that musculature will be in the way and will not allow you to rightly breathe or deeply breathe. And even if you remember for a few seconds -- you will breathe deeply -- again when you are engaged in your work you will start breathing shallow chest breathings. The musculature has to be changed. Once the musculature is changed, the fear disappears and the tension disappears. Rolfing is tremendously helpful; but the working is on pranamaya kosha, the second -- bioplasma body, bioenergy body, chi body, or whatsoever you want to call it.

Watch a child and that is the natural breathing, and breathe that way. Let your belly come up when you inhale, let your belly go down when you exhale. And let it be in such a rhythm it becomes almost a song in your energy, a dance -- with rhythm, with harmony -- and you will feel so relaxed, so alive, so vital that you cannot imagine that such vitality is possible.


Is it not true,i have wasted my time in affirmations,nlp etc.But it is really your breath that makes your difference.Simply put,the people who breathe deep are the cool,outgoing,alive energetic ones and the people who breathe shallow are the ones who are always depressed,anxious .Well i was always a shallow breather,i realized this when i could not sing properly without taking a lot of gasps in between.Now this has also been experimentallly verified.The leader of accelerated learning techniques says: Project Renaissance, Winsights, Part 61, "Breathing and Personality Traits -- A Hypothesis" (July/August 2002)

Well then for a month i have been practising exhaling for 15 minutes everyday to deepen my breath and i feel so much better now.But then i asked myself what is the best way to achieve a deep breath and finally claim for myself what i already deserved.what i already had as a child - great vitality and energy but had lost it in due course of time due toi poor breathing habits.Now i have found out the best method
Two GUARANTEED Ways To Profoundly Increase Your Intelligence

Here win wenger says that held breath underwater swimming is the best for lung expansion and it makes our system to incorporate more oxygen and thus allow us to feel more vital.I have been doing this for 3 days now and feel so much better.The challenge as explained by wenger is to stay 3-3.5 mins underwater.I invite you all to participate in this experiment and continue this thread and keep posting your progress.I will too.

Well,i finally am believing that if your emotional life sucks because you are breathing poorly .Breathe naturally and deeply and you will reclaim your lost vitality.It is always easier to change yourself through physical methods i.e. held breath underwater swimming than through mental methods( affirmations,nlp)

[Mitalp]

great info, thanks for sharing.

[RT Wolf]

I'll be trying to breathe more in the stomach from now on. Thanks!

[TheFlyingMan]

Great info, thanks for sharing.

Just like to add that Eckhart Tolle recommends just watching your breath. No need to force a stomach breath, if you just keep calm and observe it, it'll naturally go into the stomach. Observe it, as in feel the breath go in your nose, down your throat, just feel it.