Breath and the stillness of mind

In his life, a man needs to learn just one thing. He needs to learn to manage just one thing. His breath. He needs to be conscious of his breathing and should be able to control it voluntarily. For this, he needs to master the techniques. But the secret is that the breath and the mind tend to slow each other down.

Slow and deep breathing leads to calmness of mind immediately. The dynamic mind needs to be stilled. The dynamism manifests itself in the form of mind and its various alterations, propensities and dispositions, such as thoughts, desires, emotions, intelligence, senses, etc. These are the cause of all his actions. The more prevalent are these, the more is the dynamism and less is the stillness and calmness. The less of these things means more of calmness.

On one extreme is the state where no breath is taken, but that is death. That is complete stillness. On the other extreme is the living state of the present day’s man, which is filled with restlessness, anxieties and worries. The difference between the living and the dead is the breath. Breath is the cause of dynamism in the man. There are yogic techniques to voluntarily achieve the state of death or breathlessness or complete stillness. This is not total breathlessness though. In this state, only the external breathing ceases and all breathing becomes internal. But a man needs to learn this and then practice it to be in that state all the time and be able to call upon this on his will.

But until then, a man has to find ways around to cut down on the dynamism of his mind. In a still state, all the mind’s dynamism is collected and centered at a single place. We may call this the still mind. In this state, the mind’s tendencies or manifestations disappear or at least lessen to a great extent. On the other hand, in the dynamic state, the still mind disperses and scatters itself across various thoughts, desires, emotions, etc. The more is this dynamism, the faster is breathing. But a long duration of higher dynamism leads to restlessness. In this state, a conscious deep and slow breathing reduces dynamism and induces stillness, slowly and gradually. But longer and longer duration of higher and higher dynamism also results into a man’s inability to easily get back into stillness through breathing. This state is like what we know as stress in modern times.

Breath brings oxygen into the body which is carried by the blood to every cell in the body. This oxygen provides the life-current to the cells thus making them capable of performing actions, including the very act of thinking by the brain cells. In the state of restlessness, the breath brings more oxygen in the body which is needed by the cells. But a slow and deep breathing makes the process of breathing conscious as well, which means that man’s attention gets focused on the motion of the breath. Thus, his mind in a way starts coming out of thoughts and other avenues where it was occupied, and slowly starts centering around his breath. His mind and hence his attention and his awareness then starts traversing up and down the spine, while he breathes deeply.

In the beginning, the man should try to learn the above, i.e. the art of deep breathing. And while he is doing that, he should also start learning to move his mind by directing his attention to the breath, thus moving it along the trajectory of the breath, which is the spine. But gradually, he should learn to bring and keep the attention of his mind on a single point, which is the point between the two eyebrows. He will slowly realize that he is able to place his attention on this point, even when the breathing is going on in the background without any conscious effort. And then he should work towards increasing the time span, the duration for which he can hold his concentration on this point. He will eventually reach a calm state where he feels breathing no longer. Its only him and the point of concentration. This state of duality will ultimately lead him to the experience of non-duality, if he persists and makes more efforts.