"do you want to know how spirituality works? Breathe!" - Deng Ming Dao

     As I breathe in, I am filled with inspiration, hope and healing.  My inbreath echoes and renews the first breath of life that began my journey in the physical.
     My out-breath releases to healing any negativity I may hold ……. this breath returns to me with life anew and I am once again filled with the joy of life……….
     Our breath is sacred!   It is our first and, one day our last action, in the physical as this body.
      In this life we knowingly or unknowingly hold beliefs born from fear and ignorance.  Knowingly or unknowingly we allow these beliefs to become our truth and it is these “truths” that often are the very blocks to our greater understanding and unfoldment.  These beliefs are sometimes formed in times of extreme distress or perhaps are the beliefs of others that we have blindly followed.  Bertrand Russel tells us “it is a healthy idea now and then to hang a question mark on things we have long taken for granted.”  Ask your question and then sit in silence and breathe. 
     Our pioneers of Spiritualism very wisely tell us to hold all belief open to restatement as growing thought and investigation reveal the transcendent truth.  The truth that goes beyond what we have believed.  New and expanded truth awaits our discovery.
     Consciousness is our natural state of being.  We only lose it by identifying with our thoughts, emotions, and body.  We are not our body; we are spirit.  Our body is finite.  We are infinite.  Consciousness is to be awake, but in this dream state we call life we are asleep.  This is why the Buddha declares “I am awake.”
      Our breath is the healer supporting and carrying us through this physical life; supporting us physically and spiritually.  We are not here to suffer; we are here to enjoy, to expand and to unfold within the physical the gifts we carry as spiritual beings.  Sadly, we often see breath as only a physical function.  Breath does not only give us physical life; it also can purify and lift us higher in vibration.  One day we will see breath as the sacred guide and healer it truly is.  We will consciously make every breath our prayer.  Breath recognized and acknowledged can help us to transcend our mis-takes.   I feel that Michelangelo portrayed this sacredness of breath on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  It is true that Michelangelo painted an anthropomorphic God; but when I see that painting, I feel the breath is the important message.  Like the Dali Lama, most Spiritualists are nontheists.  Believing that God is not a being; God is a state of being.  As Spiritualists we preach the Immanence of God: that God is the everywhere present, impersonal power, manifesting as life through life; in and of itself conceived, whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing.  Infinite intelligence!  We are that life.  We are not separate from it.                                                        Namaste! emmy chetkin