Coming Back to the Breath

I have made a decision. I will, from now on, dedicate more time to Pranayama. It is imperative for me to have a more regular breath practice, so I need to dedicate the time to it. My primary teacher has said in the past that the student should make Pranayama fascinating - be fascinated by it. So that is my intention. You will be seeing a lot of posts coming up - I am writing in an effort to make this practice even more fascinating to me, and hopefully inspire the same in you.

To start, I have a few points of inspiration.

First, there is a quote from the Chandogyopanisad that Iyengar quotes in Light on Pranayama that is incredibly beautiful to me. The quote is as follows:

"Even as the spokes are fastened to the hub, so on this life breath, all is fastened. Life moves with the life breath, which gives life to a living creature. Life breath is one's father,... one's mother,... one's brother, ...one's sister, and one's teacher,...the Brahman... Verily, he who sees this knows and understands this becomes the excellent speaker."

Second, when I saw Adyashanti in Boston, he was talking about labels. We are humans - and the air is the air. But when we inhale the breath actually becomes part of us. I love this thought - We are the air and the air is us. We fuse with it, it becomes part of us as we become part of it. 

That is how I would like to make my practice. I want the practice to be part of my life and my life part of the practice.