Updated: August 23, 2024
Shiva Sutras continued. Prāṇasamācāre samadarśanam Prāṇasamācāre samadarśanam For the Yogi, every breath, every sensation that we call breath is the movement of divine consciousness or pure consciousness or pure awareness. So let's explore this. It's great. Every breath, breath is a sensation. OK? And breath is the beginning of our life. We come into this world as this entity. And as soon as we appear, we take a breath and then we keep breathing to the last moment of death.
So we come in with a breath and we exit with a breath and in between we breathe billions of times. What exactly is breath? Breath is the sensation of aliveness. And what is life? Life is a continuum of experiences? Or we should say the experience of life or the knowing of life, or the or the movement of life, or the fluctuation of life, or the vrittis of life, or the sensations of life are the movement of breath. Life itself is the continuum as experienced, continuum of experience, not just breath, every sensation, every perception, every feeling, every thought, every idea, every thing that we can call an experience is the fluctuations and the movement of life. Or we can say the experience of existence, life itself though is existence, pure existence, but pure existence knows itself through experience. And the first experience is breath, breath. And based on that every other experience, every other experience. So there is existence and then there's the knowing of existence and the knowing of existence are the fluctuations of existence.
So existence knows itself as experiences. Now, here is a very important thought that the Shiva Sutras are suggesting that if you understand that every breath is the movement of divine awareness, knowing itself as that experience, then every experience is exactly the same the movement of divine awareness. But your breath actually tells you the quality of that experience. So if the experience is contracted, coming from a very contracted state of awareness, then the bread will be shallow, the breath will be rapid. The breath might even be irregular contracted awareness, expanded awareness. The breath is deep, the breath is slower and deeper. OK? And when the vrittis completely settled down, when the sensations, images, feelings, thoughts, sense perceptions all settle down, then actually breath stops. You transcend all experience and you transcend breath itself and yet you're fully awake, fully awake and no breath. At least for those moments of transcendence. In other words, every breath mirrors the movement of consciousness from transcendence or infinite being to contracted being in all sentient beings and their world appearances.
As they experience them. I mean, sentient being is a body mind apparatus that is entangled with the perceptual activity that we call the physical world, but there is no physical world. So one final point here that is very important. And actually, if you get it totally and completely, then you're all set. And that point is that nothing perceivable or conceivable, I've said this many times before, nothing perceivable or conceivable has intrinsic existence, nothing perceivable or conceivable has intrinsic existence. Intrinsic means independent or fundamental or yeah, totally independent. Intrinsic existence is not present in anything perceivable or conceivable. Why? Because anything perceivable and conceivable is dependent on perception and conception. And so what is perception and conception dependent on? It is dependent on awareness on consciousness knowing itself as that perceptual activity and that conceptual activity that we call the body, mind and universe all going together, entangled, all entangled as a unified experience of consciousness, knowing itself as that body mind, universe.
So, of course, in science, we have concepts like gravity. What is gravity? If you understand exactly what I'm saying, then gravity is the concept. But you say no, no, it's a force. You know, it might be a force. Some people think it's a force and we experience it as a force and some people think it's the curvature of space time. And some people think you know, it is it is really fundamental to what we call the universe. But let's go a little deeper before you can call gravity anything, before you can call it the curvature of space time, as Einstein imagined it, or even an intense gravitational field, as Einstein imagined it or a force of attraction between matter as Newton imagined it and came up with the mathematical formulation. So before that entity that we call gravity was described, it was a cognitive, perceptual, understanding of consciousness knowing itself as that. So gravity is modified form of consciousness, as is space, as is time.
OK. As is dimensionality. So you know, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, the size of objects and the duration of time depends on the speed of the observer, the observer in that case, is a concept which is the body mind. And of course, according to the general theory of relativity, then gravity is an intense gravitational field as experienced by an observer, cognitively, perceptually. And so time is the same thing, it's a concept. Matter is a concept. Space is a concept. Energy is a concept. Information is a concept and these concepts are awareness, knowing itself as that particular experience. Existence, knowing itself as that particular experience. What the Shiva Sutra is saying is if you just pay attention to breath and see its movement as the movement of divine awareness, then the entire experience of the universe and how you, as awareness, create it. How you as awareness creat it. You'll understand everything about the creation of the universe and how you, as awareness, conceive, construct, govern and become that experience. But that experience is not you. That experience is a finite manifestation of you.
Reflect on the spacetime energy matter, information, gravity, hard awareness, knowing itself as experience. Very profound. And the understanding of breath is the ultimate vipassana. Knowing breath, you know existence..
