The breath has a great influence and entire control over two principles which work by the power of breath: Kabs, or contraction, and Bast, or expansion. The former absorbs, attracts and gathers energy from outside; the latter tendency repels energy from within. In this way body and mind are sustained, nourished, enriched, and made light, easy, clear and pure by the power of breath. Inhaling is contraction and exhaling is expansion. It is upon these two principles and their regular working that the health and happiness of person depend.
One who has not gained power over the breath is like a king who has no power over his domain. Once one has gained the power of contraction and expansion, then what one needs in life is to know what to attract and what to repel, and this the master of breath intuitively understands. Even the birds and animals know what they must eat and drink and what they must not. By a close study of the lower creation, students of nature have learned that animals and birds abstain from food and drink when it becomes necessary for health.
I am often asked the question, Why should there be pain in childbirth? And the answer is that our life has been removed far from nature. People today live an artificial life to such an extent that they can hardly understand what real life may be. They consider the accustomed to be the natural; they do not think how far the natural is removed from the present life we live. The domesticated animals are also beginning to show the birth pain, through their association with human beings.
Fikar* practiced for some years helps to regulate the rhythm of breathing, and it helps in all aspects of life to attract and repel all one wishes. By the help of fikar not only the digestive faculty and the circulation of the blood and the pulsations of the body are made regular, but the concentration that is developed through the development of breath enables one to repel all disagreeable impressions which cause despair and depression. By the power of fikar one helps the power of memory, and also the power of retention of thought. At the same time one is enabled by the power of breath to forget any thought one wishes to put out of the mind and to erase from the heart any impression deeply engraved.
*Editors' note: Within the context of Sufi meditative practice, Hazrat Inayat Khan used the term fikar (or fikr) to describe silent repetition of a sacred word or phrase (wazifa).
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