The Creative Breath

Breath is the most precious of gifts we have. The average person cannot go more than a couple minutes without breathing. This rise and fall of breath is the basis of our life-force energy.

While breath is the most fundamental aspect of life, I feel like we have only a superficial understanding of the way it actually works. Beyond simply bringing air to our lungs, I believe that breath brings creative ideas to the mind.

Breath is Music - Pencil on paper 2017

A few years ago, while in meditation I had the sudden realization that inspired ideas originated from outside the mind, and that we are like computers designed to receive and process divine information. In this way we are instruments through which “God” communicates; extensions of God. This concept that breath is the conduit for creative thought is not new, but for me it was. I was under the assumption that my brain was fully responsible for my ideas.

I want to make it clear that by “God” I don’t mean God the Creator as described in Christianity, I mean God as a force of nature, closer to what is described in Pantheism; the belief that everything in nature (including us) is an extension of the divine.

If ideas don’t originate in the mind and actually come to us from outside the body, where do they come from? And how can they possibly enter the mind via our breath? I think those are questions that can’t really be answered. To say that ideas come from God, and God is breath, doesn’t do much to explain anything. For one thing, now we need to know what God is, and that’s a topic that has eluded humankind throughout time; as the Indian poet Shakara said about trying to describe God, “Oh Thou, before whom all words recoil.”

Although we can’t have definitive answers, there are some clues that our ancestors arrived at the same conclusions. For example, The word Brahman, the Hindu word for God, is derived in part form the word breath. The Latin word for breath is spiritus which the word inspire is also derived from, meaning ‘to have an idea breathed into you’. It’s easy to dismiss this as mere poetry rather than acknowledge the secret knowledge hidden within.

If ideas come to us via the wind and carry with them what can only be called awareness, is it safe to say that they are conscious beings in some respect?

Common belief is that the mind produces ideas: Late one night as he is falling asleep, a man has a “bolt of lightning” vision for an invention later to be known as the saxophone, and then sets to inventing it. “You’re a genius!” Someone might say, and his ego flutters as he smiles and congratulates himself for being so damn intelligent.

But was the idea really his? Or did it simply choose him? And more interestingly, why did it choose him? I think the answer to that might be that, just like a seed knows how to find ideal growing conditions, so too an idea-entity will find the ideal host so that its probability of manifestation is high. And if that’s true it implies that these idea-entities which are riding the winds looking for a host, are in fact self aware.

While we are fantastically complex, spirited beings who dream and create incredible things, we should hesitate to take full credit for these creations, for this is like the saxophone itself taking credit for producing the music. The saxophone relies on our divinely inspired breath to create the melody. We are like that saxophone, the instrument through which the formless breath of God dances and plays and comes into form. Thus, our relationship with God is reciprocal and collaborative like the musician and the saxophone.

BUT, we are not just instruments, we are sentient beings in our own right. This is where it gets really complicated! Imagine if the saxophone had a mind of its own! It would be a very hard instrument to play. And similarly, Our ego often gets in the way of our connection to the Divine, causing all kinds of issues.

But how do we just get out of the way of ourselves? This is easier said than done, and I think it’s a topic for another post.

What I do know is that it will greatly serve us to tune up, tune in, and learn how our own instrument-body works. We should know the power of the breath and how to better take care of our bodies in order to receive a clearer transmission from the Divine, and to be humble enough to submit to this power that is our life force energy.

So, take a deep breath…breathe in, breathe out. Experience that breath to the fullest. Breathing is automatic, but if you give it your full attention for a moment, you might be surprised by the magic hiding in that perpetually repetitive automation…