Breath Is Life
Shyam Singh Heikrujam *
The act of breathing of air (oxygen) is absolutely required for continued existence of our life. To breathe is to live and without breath there is no life. From the first faint breath of the infant to the last gasp of the dying man, it is one long story of continued breathing. Life is a series of breaths.
Breathing may be considered as the most important of all of the functions of the body. All other functions depend upon it. Man may exist some days without eating, a shorter time without drinking, but without breathing he may exists for a few minutes.
Naturally, if something is wrong in our body, it complains. It is very easy to take corrective steps if we listen to these complaints in the first stage. But in our modern lifestyle, we have no time to listen to our bodies.
We have no time to think over whether we are breathing correctly or not. We never care about our correct sitting habits with the spine erect. We go to the Doctors only when we have no alternatives.
The correct habits of breathing are essentially required for continued vitality and freedom from diseases. An intelligent control of our breathing power will lengthen our life span by giving us increased vitality and powers of resistance, and, on the other hand, unintelligent and careless breathing will tend to shorten our days.
The percentage of civilized men who breathe correctly is quite small, and the result is shown in contracted chests and stooping shoulders, and the terrible increase in diseases of the respiratory organs.
Man's mental power, happiness, self-control, clear-sightedness, morals, and even his spiritual growth may be increased by breathing correctly.
The objective of our life is to live an effective, practical and healthy life by giving rest to the body, mind and soul. This objective can very easily be achieved by practicing Yoga, Pranayama and Meditation regularly. By practicing Pranayama, we can attain control of both our body and mind.
We also can send an increased flow of vital force or "Prana" to any organ or part of our body, thereby strengthening and invigorating the part or the organ. The rhythmical breathing will bring us into harmonious vibration with nature, and activate our latent powers.
Controlled breathing not only cures many diseases in us, but also practically keeps away all fears and worries.
* Shyam Singh Heikrujam contributes to e-pao.net regularly. The writer can be contacted at heikrujamonline(at)gmail(dot)com or his blog here
This article was webcasted on June 20, 2011.
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