Demystifying Breathwork

It has been 21 years since my personal kriya yoga and meditation practice was initiated. I used to be an overstressed elementary school teacher who did not know how to stop her mind from thinking. Always entertaining thoughts as if some great reward awaited me; good grief, I had no idea I was punishing myself.

But then a wise teacher entered my life and reminded me to constantly feel the breath, trust it and one day I will know that my breath is Source/God itself, breath is Life itself. I wanted to believe him, so I followed every breathing exercise prescribed by this kriya yoga lineage (when I mentioned my wise teacher, I am referring to Paramahamsa Hariharananda as I met him in the month of May 2002 at age 95).

"Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath and the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both breaths; thus he releases prana from the heart and brings life force under his control." Yoga Sutras (11:49)

And yes, form and structure (yoga and breathwork) serve as a boat one needs to cross the river of insecurities.

Our human nature is always curious and seeking more and more… in order to know. And this is a pathway back home (back to Source) and once the boat, (the form and structure of something/anything) brings you back to the shore, then what will you do next?

There are only so many years (thousands of human hours) that you could practice and teach using that form and structure, being on that boat journey.

What comes after?

Do you continue to carry the boat on your head? It becomes heavy and unnecessary.

A wise boatman would abandon the boat on the shore, and start walking on his/her two feet.

Now a new journey is about to begin.

If one can no longer be confined by form and structure then one becomes formless. And that was the whole point from the beginning of the Beginning.

Follow a form

deepen the practice

and then release the form:

Become formless...

Sounds like a simple formula for inner mastery (any kind of mastery you desire). This is my own revelation to share after 21 years of paying attention to my own breath and 15 years of teaching yoga and meditation.

Perhaps some yoga teachers who deepened their teaching form, will one day abandon it all and realize that each breathing moment of existence is part of their yoga practice/union with Source within; this is now happening all by itself and they could not stop it if they wanted to.

And after this revelation, they may still choose to teach yoga and breathwork here and there for the joy of sharing an embodied human expression, but nothing else to be pursued. Energy is not wasted somewhere else (branding, followers, marketing, getting likes. etc...)

Who else is left out there to like you if you have already been loved by the Breath Itself?

...and here is a short story to explain where this question came from:

One day a dear friend came to me overwhelmed with emotion because her beloved had suddenly said to her, 'I don't know if I can trust you anymore...you know, that situation when you did not give me all the details and it felt like you were withholding information, that triggered my own trust issues... so I really do not know if I could trust you anymore, no matter what you promise me now.' And this dear one was in tears, hearing the words of her very beloved (the one she held so close to her heart) and she was struggling to make him understand the inner reasoning of her heart, but to no avail. And she took herself out for a walk where flowers bloomed and sunshine sparkled in the air. She needed to clear her own energy field. Tears still streaming, she could hear herself ask of her own inner self, 'How do I make my beloved trust me again? Please show me. My heart is so true, why can't he feel that? Why?' Her body was moving, her mind was questioning (a mental movement there too) and then something else happened.

Her eyes suddenly fell on a flower on the sidewalk. Time stood still. A presence and a gentle breeze came and swept the flower up.

Then a soft voice inside her own chest spoke to my friend:

'I Am your breath. I trust you to carry me from one moment to another, to be my guardian of inner truth. I fully trust you. Isn't this good enough for you, my beloved One?'

It was as if her old tears turned to invisible dust. Not the sparkling dust powder women use to make their cheeks glow. This invisible dust can make one's true face glow so brightly that he or she could be likened to a Sun Source.

And this is how this simple question was born:

Who else is left out there to like/or love you if you have already been loved by your own breath itself?

NOTE: Much gratitude to my dear friend Natalia in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (she inspired this piece of writing on March 15th, 2023 when she had posted some information on breathwork on her FB page). My comment to her post became a promise I made that day to write a piece called "Demystifying Breathwork". I did handwrite this piece in my journal and today this task of typing it all up is complete. Namaste, Cezarina