Edward’s Diary Entry 101: Breathing and Dying

We already said we are only 2 minutes from death. We can probably go without food for weeks. We can survive without water for days. Without air, we die in minutes.

But life is so strong, so intelligent, so bent on living within us, that we can’t stop our own breathing. We can just get a taste of that final moment by trying to hold our breath and seeing how impossible it is. Nature abhors a vacuum and will get that breath out or get it in despite our most strenuous efforts to quell the flow.

I remember seeing someone die in a hospital bed, when the intermittent breathing just seemed to wheeze out and wind down, not without some clicking noises, and then there was silence, and the chest no longer rose. The room was darkish and the scene was illuminated from behind by the lights coming in the window, maybe the moon, I don’t know. It was many years ago.

So our prescribed natural death can come at any time, effortlessly. We don’t know when. It’s just like our normal breathing. We are not aware of it, it just happens in us. We get up, brush our teeth, have breakfast, work, play, smile, get angry, suffer stress, and we hardly know we’re breathing at any time, unless we are so hard-pressed that we have to run and gasp for air – then we notice it for a minute. Or as the Spanish say, we put on a new shirt and have sex on a Saturday, and suddenly we know at the final moment that we are breathing hard! Ha-ha, it’s also a climax for breathing!

But if not, we spend 24 hours breathing like animals, without awareness, without realizing its magic. Maybe 8 hours in complete unconsciousness when sleeping, but then 16 hours like ghosts. Why talk about dying in this context? We’re already partially dead, because we haven’t even started living like real men and women yet. Unless we place awareness in our breath at some point throughout the day, and perceive that magic – the kind of magic that is omnipresent and unseen, multifaceted but unheard, universal but only dimly experienced. So some lucky few do pranayama in yoga class and are finally aware of their breath for a few minutes. Or get a workout at the gym and struggle for air, if they’re not simply focusing on growing muscle fibres. Or maybe smoke a cigarette and finally breathe more deeply and notice their breath, albeit tainted with nicotine flavours.

What we need to do is to breath like human beings, who are endowed with a consciousness that is higher than that of the animals. That means marvelling at the power of breath, its depth, its connectivity… We have invented “social networks” out there, but we have always had a highly social network right in our throats, because breathing connects all living things on the planet via the atmosphere. It also tells us we’re alive and pulsating, not dead and awaiting decomposition. So let’s get some more Self-Awareness into our respiratory system and stop acting so unconsciously – which is what causes all our human problems. Human “problems” decrease with an increase in Self-Awareness. It’s simple.