Reading for Sunday, January 17, 2010
Healing Papers
Volume 2, Number 1, Lesson 29
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Inhaling shows the power of absorption which is manifest in all living beings and in all objects. Little germs, worms, trees and plants all absorb, and in that way they breathe. Also in all living beings and in all things there is a tendency to put out an element which their system will not assimilate. It is not only the inhaling and exhaling by the nostrils which accomplishes these two functions, absorption and rejection; but there are minute waves of the breath working in different directions of the body, which perform the above said two acts in their own way and in their own rhythm of speed; for instance, the tendency of stretching and contracting, the tendency of blinking the eyes, of expelling water and refuse from the body. When any of these subtle waves of the breath working in any direction of the body get out of order, then an illness originates in that particular part of the body, spreading its influence gradually to other parts.
Balance in one's life and being is maintained by the evenness of inhaling and exhaling. The compass of one's being is as large as the reaching point of one's breath. One person lives a fuller life, another does not live a fuller life, because the former breathes fully, the latter does not breathe fully. Very often the reason why a child is a dwarf is that his breathing capacity does not allow him to breathe fully; and often the reason why a youth does not develop fully is that he does not breathe properly. People age sooner, also, because their breathing is not right. Very often people who have no particular illness feel tired and lifeless because their breathing is not as it ought to be.
The spirit produces this physical body out of itself, so the body, in spite of all the physical nourishment, entirely depends upon the spirit to live. One can live for some time without food and water, but one cannot live without breathing. The reason is that as the physical body is made of the spirit, it needs to breathe spirit in, in order to exist. Breath, therefore, does not only nourish the physical body, but it gives subsistence to all the planes of one’s existence.
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