By Lynda Austin
For years people told me how important it was to learn to breathe properly. I never could get into it. As an intuitive channel and teacher, I felt I definitely should be paying attention. Then one evening I was doing a channeling for a group in Colorado. Someone asked about the importance of proper breathing. The response stayed has with me ever since as one of the most powerful and beautiful explanations of the important of breath.
Response:
We have said in the past that there is a great deal of agreement in every culture — what you could call universal truths — the “Golden Rule”, etc. Virtually all of the disciplines will talk to you of breathing, particularly the disciplines that work to simplify life. We say: “Simplify it down to the breath.”
Breath. “The breath of life.” You all say it; and you do not understand what you are saying. Each time you draw in a breath, you create. Each time you breathe out, you present a creation to the world, to the Universe. Each time you breathe in, you take oxygen to your lungs, your bloodstream, your cells — and you become a different human being. You are changed with each breath. Each time you breathe out, you are a different human being than you were when you breathed in. This is LIFE: Experience comes in, experience goes out, and you are changed. Breath is not good or bad, it IS. Life is not good or bad, it IS. Experience is not good or bad, it IS.
Breath is symbolic in that you cannot take in more than you can use. If you attempt to hold on too tightly, you are forced to let go. It is no good to you to try to hold onto it. Think of everything that comes into your life as breath. “He was a breath of fresh air in my life.” Then why would you want to hold onto him when it is time for him to leave, when you know that to hold your breath will kill you?
It is so simple. You cannot take in more than you need, and if you try to hold onto it after you have taken the good out of it, it is of no value to you. You will die. You can only live by letting go, and when you let go, you are then able to take in again. You cannot take in until you let go.
Consider the person who chooses to give and give and give and is not good at receiving – – – one cannot breathe that way! You cannot simply breathe OUT. No one blames you if you breathe in. No one says, “Oh, my, isn’t she selfish. Look at her breathing up all that air.”
It is the same in life. You take in what you need, you pour out again to the Universe what you have taken and what you cannot use you let go of. And no one calls you selfish. It is so simple. The Breath of Life. Breath IS life. Life and breath — Balanced: In and out, in and out. IN is not more important than out. OUT is not better than in. “Out” is not good and “in” bad. It is a perfect balance. It is so simple.
It is so simple and it is so beautiful and it is so true. If you learned nothing else in your life, if you would sit and contemplate your breathing you would understand that such is life. That is not hard. They say the yogis contemplate their breathing. Well, you can do that. It is quite simple. It comes in, goes out, and you live. And you do not have to ask anyone for it. You do not have to ask permission to let go. And no one has to give you permission to breathe in. No one judges you for breathing.
And there is not one moment in a day when any of you questions whether or not there is going to be enough air for you to breathe!
You assume that it is going to be there. The Universe has provided you an abundance of the most vital thing in your life — the one thing that you cannot live more than a few minutes without — air. Not money. Not water. Not money. Not food. Not money. Not clothes. Not love. AIR! And the Universe has provided it in an abundance to you, to the point that you do not even question that it is going to be there. Why would you possibly doubt that anything else you should need is going to be there?
It is so simple, and it is so hard. The simplest things are often the most difficult, you know? Love. Love is so simple. If the Universe provides you with air to the point where you accept it as a given — and it is the single most important thing in your life — how could you think that you are going to be deprived of anything else. And once you can live accepting life the way you accept breath, it will be as automatic as breathing. We will tell you; not very many get to that point.