Begin the meditation with vigorous breathing to lighten up.  Strong, vigorous breathing.  When you feel the lightness follow up with the rhythmic breathing.  Long and deep breathing, strong breath – strong enough to be able to hear it.

The breath, the breathing, this breathing will draw you in, center you, energize and harmonize. You have to keep with it for it to be effective. You will find space in yourself between the breath and yourself. And in that self-silence you will arrive at meditation.

So take long deep breaths, strong breaths. This breathing is also extremely good for your physical and mental health. It will relax, center you, draw you in, energize, harmonize. It is healthy altogether.

And that moment of harmony will come which will make space within yourself between the breath and yourself.  And in that silence, in that self-silence you will have arrived at meditation. If you do with me then you will be able to do with yourself when you are on your own.

There will be a moment when you will feel a tightening as you breathe in a long, deep and strong breath, and then you will also feel a release and an opening out. The more this happens, the more you arrive at your inner freedom, the more you arrive at an opening within, the more you find space in yourself from thoughts, feelings, emotions, the breath, the body.

When you find this space you find even the inner is outer to the innermost. Now ordinarily, thoughts, feelings, emotions, breath, they are not outside you. But when you find the space within yourself you find they are outside, around you, while you are behind and distant from them.

Then you can think your thoughts in freedom, then you can feel your feelings in freedom!  And so also your passions and so also your body. Then you have embodied freedom, then you have found that freedom that has taken to embodiment—a life of freedom. The moment of harmony will come, so also the space, the distance between you and the breath. Everything that comes up, they are no concern of yours. See if you can remain with the breath allowing these things to pass through you and out.

You are being with yourself; it is an opportunity through the breathing to be with yourself. It will bring you to yourself. Really, breath is very close to your self-awareness.

When you feel the tightening of the breath in your chest, this is a good sign. From there will follow this inner release.

When the breath is loud enough you can hear it, and through this hearing-aid you come to yourself and you can stay with the breath throughout. It is a help, it is an aid—the hearing-aid. And also because it is loud enough it is strong enough, and therefore it will energize you at the same time as you relax and harmonize.

I have been continuing with this breathing because it is an extremely useful tool for you to arrive at the Reality, yourself—meditation. It is a means to arrive at yourself more and more; it is a means to arrive at the Reality more and more. It is a means to bring you to the Awakening in a most radical way.

It will rejuvenate your being completely, from the physical level to the most subtle, from the outer to the innermost, from the lower to the highest.

Arya Vihar

17 March 2000