An Entry Point To Your Real Nature

[Azrael]

Just the other day I watched this video from Matt Khan, in which he discusses the breath as a pointer to your real nature.

Along my spiritual journey I find myself working a lot with pointers to dig very deep in my own existential nature. They seem to be like constant holes that are completely ignored by most people because of their seeming simplicity. However, I found that they can be your greatest teachers if you spend some effort checking them out.

So, I want you to shift the way of seeing yourself with this post. For real. When watching Matt's video he just did that for me and it brought me within two days to some new realizations + a lot of silence and peace, so I have to let you in on this. Decide for yourself.

Basically, as we ask "Who am I?", "What am I?" we are looking for a constant notion of ourself. For something that was and is there all the time. So we start with thoughts, feelings, emotions, the body etc. and seem to not come too far with that. Even if we have some realizations we are still stuck inside our head.

So what is actually constant about ourselves? Maybe listening, the essence or nature of perceptions, probably a few other things but something that defines our life from birth to death is simply Breath. We start with breathing as our first move in life and we will end it with the last one - poetically saying.

Have you noticed the way you breathe is directly correlated with how you feel, how and how much you think, whether you are in flow or not, whether you are in a deep stage of samadhi or hyperventilating in the name of fear and anxiety? Stop for a second and check yourself out. 

Isn't that strange? So Matt illustrates in his video kinda artfully that we are our breath. Not existentially of course, but as I pointer to who we really are. Kind of like a door to nothingness - an entry point to your real nature.

He also makes the point that you - as your breath - are perfectly awake, enlightened - complete by nature. You go in and out whatever happens. From the day all of this starts to the day you die. And so he gives the picture that every thought, all perceptions, all feelings, every kind of form that we sense is nothing but a whim of the breath.

As if you are the breath and everything that comes up is just another incarnation, another form, another anything that lives from breathing in until breathing out. And so the world you see, live in and perceive is just "the game of the breath", "the colorful illustration of the breath".

Now - and I invite you to invest one hour to get this realization from Matt personally in his video - I was struck by this so much that I had this sudden change of mind that if I'm actually just the breath everything is just fine. Because I'm complete and all the thoughts and perceptions are just the breath' whim of entertaining itself and the world.

Yesterday and today I tended to consciously breath a lot and so deepened and slowed the pace of my breath and I felt such a great harmony and peace inside of me. Because I always had in mind that everything I think is just another whim of my breath. And my breath just lets it live for another 2-3 seconds.

Well, don't get me wrong here. You are existentially a lot more then your breath of course. But the breath seems to be a direct door to what you really are because it was there even before you became conscious and it will be there until you die.

So, maybe it is not such a bad idea to stick yourself to your breath and get real close with it, because it seems that this is the regulator, the point that from breath to breath brings everything - you currently think you are - up to existence and lets it die a few seconds later.

Maybe there is some wisdom to find at that door, don't you think?

I hope I could inspire you guys. Let me know what you think about it and do yourself a favor and watch Matt's video about this, it brought me to a new place I couldn't see before. Also, think about how your life would change if you'd be every breath consciously. You can still think, do everything as you want but you are every breath. What would change? How would you feel? What would be the pace of your breath? How much tension would be left inside your body? How complete would you feel? Let me know.

And don't forget. Everything I just pointed out is just an idea. Nothing more. But as you tend to identify yourself with more and more ideas, maybe you want to chose one that sits a little nearer to the door of Truth then being fed up in never ending thoughts.

Cheers to you,

Edited February 28, 2016 by Arik
typos

[Nathalie]

Thank you so much for sharing.

Your article is so profound and inspiring that I can't imagine that Matt Kahn's video could be better,

again, thank you for this

[Evilwave Heddy]

Hey, thanks for sharing this.  As nuts as this guy sounds...it makes sense in a way.

[cetus]

 Have you ever tried this. Being the empty space between the in breath and the out breath.

[Azrael]

45 minutes ago, Evilwave Heddy said:

Hey, thanks for sharing this.  As nuts as this guy sounds...it makes sense in a way.

Hahaha, I felt the same way at first about Matt. When somebody shared some video of him I just looked at the preview picture and thought: "Yet another new-age wuhu guy with flowers and all of that crap." I actually just became addicted to Leo's stuff in the first place because he is so "down to earth".

Well, then I listened a few days ago to his radical acceptance video and was stunned how he made me realize 2-3 new perspectives just by watching that video. Plus he gave me a mindset and words how to go about acceptance that work instantly. I listen to a lot of intellectual stuff and most lacks integrity and practicality. Matt - for me - just punched me in the face with wisdom. That's incredible.

Same with the topic I elaborated on in this post just that I find this even deeper and it had and has an even more interesting influence in the way I see things. So I had to bring you in on that.

I respect this guy a lot for being more helpful than dozens of talks of the most intellectual whatsoever people I listen to every day. He got it.

[Azrael]

11 hours ago, cetus56 said:

 Have you ever tried this. Being the empty space between the in breath and the out breath.

Yeah, just did this on the weekend very consciously. It slows down the pace of your breath, deepens your sense of self and seems to slow down your thoughts. Plus I felt very relaxed and just complete, totally in flow. It's like going around with this constant - little greedy - smile in your face. Because you look at everyone and while you just focus on breathing in ... feeling completely fine and ... breathing out - all other people seem completely neurotically bound to the "colorful illustration of the breath". The content, the drama. But not really the point it's arising out of and into.

Plus, what's even more interesting is that if you start to listen to other people's breath a little and not just to what they are saying - as you normally do - you can kind of see how they are complete - just by breathing - and are totally caught up in their head not knowing it.

Also note that everything they say and probably think is accompanied by the fitting breath pattern, which kind of like gives it the ground to live - metaphorically saying.

You can of course also do that with yourself, it's quite funny actually.

I like to see it this way - and that's just another idea but a really nice one to identify with - I'm just that space between my in- and out-breath, I'm not able to see yet that I die every few seconds and get born right after that again and I'm just fine and complete by nature. Everything else is just the most powerful illustration - I know - that's brought up, through the means of my body, and brought down again.

Now, this of course is just an idea. But it turns out if you spend some time looking into that, your real nature shines in on you from time to time, so maybe you get a better sense of where you belong as in contrary to being all in your head and you are just not finding a way out.

That's the way out. One way. Utilize it to let it show the real you.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Arik

[abrakamowse]

On 2/29/2016 at 1:36 PM, cetus56 said:

 Have you ever tried this. Being the empty space between the in breath and the out breath.

How do you do it? Being aware of it?

 

 

[cetus]

 Yes. Placing the point of focus between breathing in and out. I find doing that is maybe deeper than focusing on just the breath- in and breath-out. Maybe more focus is needed because it's only there for a split second? It feels differently to me too. I place more awareness in between breaths and allow consciousness to "hang" there for a moment,  and just let the in breath and out breath happen.

Edited March 3, 2016 by cetus56