Chapter 21 - INTERIOR RESPIRATION

With each Divine impulse the mind (soul) rends the thin rind of the visible and finite; and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world. -- Emerson: 'The Over-Soul.'

I use the term 'interior respiration' to indicate a type of inner breathing by the soul, as distinct from ordinary breathing by the lungs.

For the greater part of my life I was quite unaware that there was such a thing as interior respiration. No religious teacher had ever hinted at it, neither did I find it mentioned in books. That for which I never sought came to me in due course of its own volition. On looking back, it seems to me that I became aware of interior respiration as a result of practicing interior prayer, and also that it followed the deep rhythmic breathing which came to me about the same time.

The same law operates both in nature and throughout our spiritual life; indeed, our spiritual unfoldment is similar to the growth of a plant and the unfoldment of a flower, and if we observe the unfoldment of a rose bud (for instance) we see the orderliness of the process. There is no hurry or fuss, yet everything comes to pass at the right time, and each stage of unfoldment takes place in its proper order and sequence. So it is with our spiritual unfoldment; it proceeds with perfect order, each stage being reached in its right sequence, and in due course - if we are patient - all stages will be reached.

In my own case these successive stages were not clearly defined, and three stages appear to be somewhat merged and Intermixed. Never having kept a diary, I must rely on memory alone, but as far as I can remember it began in this fashion. First of all I noticed a sense of life and power in the region of the solar plexus and 'within you is the power' became a real experience so that I could feel the Power.

After this came the deep, rhythmic breathing in which my physical respiration seemed to be 'caught up' and conformed to the Hidden Life. It seemed to me as though there was a deeper breathing going on all the time, but that we humans were not in accord with it. Suddenly, as a result of contemplation, the two breathings seemed to merge into one, and I found myself inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with the breath of Hidden Life.

I found my breath becoming deeper and deeper, so that I was led to say:

Interiorly, my life has infinite extensions
Beyond time and space.

All this is mixed up in my memory with the discovery of God's Inward Peace. It seems to me now that it was when I found God's Inward Peace flowing through me like a river, that I became aware of my real life having infinite extensions beyond time and space. It seems to me now that practicing inward prayer had something to do with my discovery of the Hidden Life.

Praying inwardly in time with the beating of the heart, and the breathing of the lungs, is a very potent practice and must surely have a considerable influence upon one's spiritual progress. I do not recommend others to practice interior prayer, but I have to record the fact that I have done so myself.

After a time I began to notice something else which is much more difficult to describe. I became conscious deep down within my being that I belonged to a larger world which was also a world of finer texture. It was certainly not the world of departed spirits, but the world of true substance -the world of Reality. This was the world in which my soul functioned.

But I realized by intuition that my soul life could be greatly strengthened by conscious co-operation on my part. I realized that deep down within me I could make my soul breathe the finer ethers of a most inward life, and in the same way that the inward peace which I had previously experienced was the same peace which God Himself enjoys, so also the finer ethers which my soul was able to breathe were indeed the very breath of God.

Now when I discovered that I could recognize this inward respiration by the soul, and encourage it by co-operating with it, I hesitated doing anything about it, for here was a vast new field, uncharted and unexplored, of which I was entirely ignorant. Neither did anyone else apparently know anything about it.

Paul speaks only once of contacting what he described as the 'third heaven', but in order to do this he had to leave his body and go to another place. But as Jesus said, we do not have to go anywhere: 'Neither shall they say, lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.' It is true that Swedenborg was said to have practiced interior respiration, which was followed by what he termed 'open vision', so that like William Blake he could see angels and denizens of other planes and converse with them. But my experience was entirely different from either St. Paul's or Swedenborg's. I did not leave my body, neither did I have open vision on other planes; but inwardly I knew that my soul inhabited Eternity and that my life was as deep as the Universe.

This experience was quite big enough for me: I had discovered that interiorly I was a denizen of a great uncharted (by me) country. But I knew of no one who could give me any information so I hesitated to go forward, preferring to wait. There is an old adage amongst those who try to live by faith and who are content to be guided by the Spirit, that 'when in doubt, wait'. So I waited.

I have already said that the practice of inward prayer was a preparation for interior respiration; this applied particularly to the prayer of thanksgiving and praise. As I prayed 'I thank Thee, I thank Thee, I thank Thee', especially while I exhaled -- completely emptying my lungs -- consciousness of my interior life became extended.

We have to make a practice of looking within, for if we do so we find all that we need. We find a new life and a new world - or so it appears to us. In the words of the parable, it is the home-coming of the prodigal son. Long have we wandered in the wilderness of duality, separate and apparently alone; now at long last we have returned to our Father's home. We have discovered our true identity; we have discovered that we are our Father's son and heir.

'Beloved, now are we the Sons of God.' As we look within we realize that it is our soul which breathes the breath of God. Our soul is infinitely deeper than our surface self, but it has been starved through lack of attention - now we can encourage it to breathe the finer ethers of the Hidden Life.

Our soul is not something separate. We speak of our soul and of our spirit, but they are not separate entities: in spite of our various parts, we are complete unified beings, yet what we are at the Centre cannot be defined; in other words, we cannot say what we truly are, we can only say what we are not. We can say:

I am not this body
I am not this mind
I am not this soul
I am not this spirit

But that is as far as we can get, for what we truly are can no more be defined than God can be defined; indeed, as soon as we try to say what God is we lose Him, for the God whom we define is merely a creation of the human mind. God is beyond all human thought and imagination, and that is why the mystic in his approach to God has to cast aside all his knowledge about God; all that he has learned he has to exfoliate, like a tree in autumn. It is only when we have cast aside everything and have come to nothing that we find everything - God.

Finding God's inward peace is indeed a most wonderful experience, as also is the deep inward breathing which comes to us of its own volition; but neither is sufficient in itself, nor are the two combined sufficient. There is something else needed: we have to co-operate and begin the interior respiration of the soul and this has to be a conscious act on our part. This can be illustrated in the following simple way.

On the way of my office hangs a clock which has a long pendulum. When I forget to wind it, it stops; then seeing that it has stopped, I wind it and set the hands to the right time. But something else is needed - that is that I must start the pendulum swinging. Without such help the clock cannot function, but with it it can carry on for another long period. It is much the same with the soul. Everything that is necessary is ready - with the exception of giving the final impulse. And it seems that the choice is left to us as to whether we let the soul remain quiescent or give it attention and co-operate with it, thus starting interior respiration.

One may often wonder where this new development may lead. It is early yet to forecast, but I am convinced that it can lead to nothing psychic (against which the saints have warned us, such as visions, lights, converse with angels and - so on), but rather to a deeper understanding of God and a closer union with Him. Also, although it makes us know in a way and to a degree never before experienced that we are immortals, yet it will never lead to physical immortality.

Jesus did not promise physical immortality, but He certainly said that some would not see death. This has puzzled the saints of all ages. What did He mean by this remarkable statement? I think that Jesus meant that with some, their physical body would be transmuted so that they would be translated even as Enoch was. 'Enoch walked with God: and was not; for God took him.' (Genesis 5:24.) We also read in Hebrews II:5, 'By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him..

Translation is very different from physical immortality.

It is promotion to celestial realms with a body of like nature and substance in which to function, but whether anyone now living in a physical body will be changed in such a fashion it is impossible to say. It is said of some that their bodies emit light which streams from every pore, and in such cases it is evident that 'the Light that is in every man coming into the world' is making progress.

It seems to me that those who are living the life of regeneration are having built up within them a celestial or light body in which to function on higher planes, and that in some cases this has advanced to such an extent as to shine through the physical body so that those who are 'in tune' are able to see the light. It may be that interior respiration may have something to do wlth this building-up process; but it is not possible for anyone to say, neither do I think that we should speculate about it. Everything will come to pass at the right time. We pass from one stage of unfoldment to the next without struggle or strain in much the same way that a flower bud does not worry or strain itself by ill-advised efforts to unfold itself.

All that we can do is to place our spiritual unfoldment in the hands of God, and then He will bring everything to pass at the right time. The pace at which our unfoldment takes place will always be exactly right and as it should be; we need never worry because others seem to be more advanced than we are, neither should we be envious of those who seem to have experiences which we think we ought to have. The essential thing is that we should keep in living touch with our Divine Centre through frequent recollection, and through looking inward and practicing interior prayer of praise, adoration and thanksgiving. These seem to be the most important things which we can do -after which we can leave all other things to God.