Reading for Sunday, October 25, 2009
Healing Papers
Volume 2, Number 1, Lesson 16
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It is by the power of breath that the animals search for their food; through breath they perceive what they must eat, what they must not eat, and through breath the carnivorous animals search for their prey. It is through breath that certain animals receive warning of dangers and again it is through breath that some animals when ill find their remedy. If the lower creation can do so much by the power of breath how much more can man do, if he only knows the right way of the development of breath. It is through the breath that the birds receive warnings of the changes of the weather, and accordingly they migrate in flocks from one place to another. Through the breath the herds of deer perceive approaching storms or changes of weather or the approach of a lion or a tiger. Man, who is more capable of perceiving by breath still deeper things, warnings and calls from the earth and from Heaven, which places are meant for him to dwell in or to settle in, discriminating between friend and foe and discerning their pleasure and displeasure - owing to his interest in the superficial things of life, cannot fully benefit by the power of breath.
Yogis and Sufis, therefore, and all students of the inner cult, believe that breath is the means of receiving all intuitive knowledge from every direction of life. Absorbed in a thousand things of daily life man gives very little thought to breath. Therefore he keeps his heart closed to all the revelation that can be received by the help of the breath. Man as a rule is never conscious of his breath, of its rhythm, of its development, except at the time when he is so tired that he is breathless or when he is so excited that he feels choked up, or when something keeps the breath from flowing.
For a Sufi it is desirable to be conscious of every breath. In the schools of the Sufi in the East the members of a certain association take up as their duty to remind the whole assembly of the same. So one after another, in turn, takes it up as a duty. They call aloud “Hush ba dam,” meaning, “Keep conscious of the breath.” “Nazr ba kadam” – this sentence is added when the Sufis are walking, which means, “Look down and see whose feet are these that are walking.”
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