Breathing Exercises & Odor Exposure- 27th August 1998

.... in relation to the ego and its tolerance

IF one is to practice breathing exercises for spiritual purposes we offer here the thought that the quality of the experience very much can depend upon what exactly it is that your cavities are ushering in at the time of the exercise. Is the air before you permeate or saturate with fragrance or pollutant?

Every man is an incorporated being who exacts himself constantly in aspect, within the relays of a mutual concurrence; he finds out who he is in relation to all else about him. The properties known to him in breathing are not just simple chemistry combining and reacting. This processing of time via the organ of our own egos no less, is moreover an ability to sense and know the humidities and extrapolate with them.

As it is we come to experience much of the physical world in direct clarity, whilst in the same moment we are also met with the subtle influences whose interpretations can best be known to us by the lung. As the soul-forces (which are contained and carried in the fluids) expire into a scent, we may signify much of the being and properties through smelling them, rather than by any other means available to us.

Think therefore just how paramount it becomes to invite the desirable properties to us of that or whom we should really wish to mix and mingle with. The enhancement of a spiritual breathing program or the dereliction thereof, can be consequent to our beings consumption of the immediate ethers. Incense burners know of this - providing the quality of the material burned was pure and resinous (oily rather than dried).

If monks were to breathe, chant and pray in each other's company they would bathe first so as not to be disturbed by the odors given. Expelling intestinal gas is completely discouraged for more than the obvious reasons!

Best ever is the fresh flower which speaks to us truly of fields and light, warm earth and etheric bliss; of dewy-drenched mornings and shivery breezes; of the community of nature and the gods whose signature live amongst them - and finally of much also - the etheric vitality which enters and animates with wonderful vibrancy, both plant and man. What a mystery it is indeed that some flowers can make us awash with great favor just in the smelling; that their properties are delivered in pleasing and happy tones of fragrance. This method of concentrated breathing can be a working teacher! The virtues of the plant may be incorporated and the being then motivated so.

At the time of concerted exercise, driving our wills to direct the rhythm of our breathing -

• beware the artificial fragrance;
• beware the scent of animals and unscrupulous men, and fetid breath;
• old clothes which are impregnated;
• musty rooms;
• menstruating females;
• cooking smells (particularly where meats have been burned);
• avoid pungent or foul smelling plants, whilst all other smells which are repulsive to you.

After any given exercise do not go and immediately extinguish the candle flames for the vapors quite often will poison your past effort.

It is good to bear in mind that intentional breathing acts upon us in such a way that not only are we allowing ourselves to be susceptible to extraordinary influences about us by such practices, but also are we more exposed to whatever they may be at the same time. Given this, one can begin to realize the relationship between the 'fossicking' asthma sufferer (whose ego is already given to expensive inquiries) and subsequent difficulties within regulated breathing.

On the one hand, less volume decreases the personal subtle exchange. On the other, an intentional working of the lung whereby the consciousness drives its 'opening' forces into the makeover, means 'less' really can become more and the experience could wind up intolerable.

It is best however, to caution those that practice, as to the surrounding influences, and recommend that they find an oil (for example) that they can carry upon them; one that they are immediately happy with - (preferably a sage to a sweet for these determined purposes - however, if it is a sweet oil that calms the restlessness then in moderate dilution use gladly) and remind them also to be aware of other influencing odors that are around them.

When an infant slips and slides its way into life it is touched, then it breathes the world into it. Then it sucks its mother's loving presence and slowly comes to focus eyes which dance the shadow and the light, chasing the undeciphered forms and colors and sounds that then all follow. We greet much of the world and the adjoining worlds, by meeting in such close proximities that afford an intimate analysis - our relationship to our foods, our own properties of person (known likewise therefore in others about us also) our constant intermingling with the light and the dark, and our exchanges with the higher beings that enable us to come to experience and that Father God is before us. In all of our transactions we begin to exact the true self that we may be.

We come to this world:

• analytically - via the lungs

• creatively - via the reproductive organs

• passively - via the eyes and ears

• imaginatively - via the brain and pineal gland

• empathically & spiritually - via the heart

• actively & combustively - via the stomach

• decisively - via the muscle coordinates

• willingly - via the blood

• tolerably - via the bowel

• memorably - via the bone

• soulfully - via the bodily fluids

• virtuously - via the kidneys

• emmanatorily - via the fingertips

"Spiritual beings express their nature in colors, sounds, aromas and everything that the senses perceive, and they flow into us when we connect ourselves with sensations. The first Logos streams on as a directly perceptible aroma. A being of a higher or lower nature lives in every odor. Very high, god beings live in incense; they draw us up directly to God. The lowest kind of beings are incarnated in musk scent. People who know about such things use musk for sensual attraction."

-Rudolf Steiner