What Conscious Breathing Really Is

We have all heard the expression “conscious breathing”, but it has long since lost its meaning.

Nowadays this idea is usually associated with some kind of control over the breathing process or an attempt at observing it. The essential meaning, passed down by the ancient Indian teachers, is lost and has been turned into something external. The disciple’s desire to possess a formula, to have a form to imitate, something tangible to hold — as they are pursuing a result they want to personally possess — is the reason for the loss of all meaningful things over time and their substitution with psychological semi-manufactures.

And yet, what is conscious breathing? In the last half century, new popularity was gained by the concept of Pranayama, which nowadays in considered to be a system of breathing exercises. It is usually translated precisely as control of breathing, but this has nothing to do with its actual meaning. On a slightly deeper etymological level, Pranayama means expansion of life energy. But Prana is the life energy, which fills everything, and not the personal notion of one’s own vitality. Pranayama means freeing up space inside us so that it can be filled by the life itself.

So what is conscious breathing ultimately?

What purpose does breathing serve in general? We breathe in fresh air and breathe out exhaust air, right? And if this is done consciously, then by inhaling, man allows everything into himself, receives life and the world into his chest — just the way they are (i.e., to receive). By exhaling he ejects all conditionality, every idea of self, everything (i.e., release). We breathe in the whole and breathe out what is separate and fixed. Try it. The result is purity and lightness. The result is… life.

Or, it turns out the ancient Indian secret is also the fundamental hermetic principle from which all others ensue: “Receive all, release all — and thus renew all.” Life is non-retention. Precisely because of our stagnation, consisting of desires for ourselves and fears for ourselves, we create death — the necessity for the destruction of the unreceptive and non-current form. But let us always be filled with what is and release from ourselves that which keeps us stuck. Let us breathe a little more consciously. Let us breathe life.