Feeling Good No Matter What!

I think it was Schopenhauer who said: “Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized: first it is ridiculed, then it’s opposed, and finally it is regarded as self evident.” From the start, “affirmations” was a central aspect of the Rebirthing process. Along with breathing, we also taught the idea that “thought is creative.” We discovered that the mind draws its creative power from the breath, and it became quite clear to anyone who really practiced, that we do indeed create our reality with our thoughts.

At the time, cutting edge physicists were just coming around to what mystics had been teaching forever, but very few people in the mainstream were making those connections. At the time, the idea that we made ourselves sick or made ourselves well with our mind was opposed by the medical/scientific community, and ridiculed by rational objectivist philosophers. Anyone who believed in the idea of “mind over matter” was labeled as flaky, new age, or fringe. Yet, today, the film called “The Secret” is for sale on the shelves of practically every Walmart Store and Blockbuster Video in the country!

Something truly remarkable has happened in the last thirty years: serious medical and scientific experts no longer doubt that a person’s beliefs systems and attitudes affect health, well-being and longevity. Today, leading institutions and corporations honor the “consciousness factor,” and openly apply it to their activities and operations. Things like yoga, meditation, reiki, positive thinking, creative visualization, and other alternative practices are now accepted and even offered at most major hospitals throughout the USA. 

And, just when the mainstream is finally waking up to the fact that the mind does indeed wield power over the physical universe, science is moving even further. The adage now is not mind over matter, but “mind in matter.” Consciousness is in everything and everything is in consciousness! We live, move, and have our being in a living field of consciousness. Existence is a mind field! Matter derives from mind, not mind from matter. In fact, matter as we know it, exists only in the mind. Our so called “objective reality” is ultimately a figment of our imagination! Imagine that! Matter is sentient! “Thoughts become things!” 

What does all this mean in a practical way? How does all this get applied to breathwork or everyday living?” Well, for one thing, “the truth” really does “set us free.” It also means that the real work in life takes place on the level of consciousness. Remember, Breathwork is about breath “awareness,” and “conscious” breathing.” In life, it means that it’s not so much what you do that matters: it’s what’s going on inside you while you are doing it. What happens in your head and your heart determines what happens in your life and world. It means that in many ways, what goes on in your consciousness is more important than what goes on in your relationships! Think about that one for a while.

Everything in the physical world is a creation—a projection—of what we hold in consciousness. Our beliefs determine our reality. Every single thought you think contributes to your overall experience of reality. The knowledge that consciousness is primary establishes a base upon which to live life; it provides a clear means to health and happiness. It means that we need to tame and train our thinking mind. We need to change our thoughts if we want to change the world. We need to examine our thinking if we want to be happy. 

Whenever you feel that you are suffering, life is just calling you to pay attention to your thoughts. Suffering is life’s way of getting you to look at what you believe—to examine the stories you’re telling yourself. Suffering is life shouting at you: “Change your mind!” 

Byron Katie has a simple and beautiful approach to happiness and liberation based on the primacy of consciousness. She ended her suffering by questioning her thinking mind. “Is it really true?” "How do I feel when I believe that thought?" and "Who would I be (or how would I feel) if I didn’t think that thought?" “Can I find one un-stressful reason to hold on to that thought?” 

To anyone who honestly looks, reality is clear: with the thought we suffer, without the thought we don’t! The way to end suffering is simple: drop the thought, change it, or turn it around. Shift your consciousness. If you really want to be free of suffering, then you have to realize that it doesn't matter whether what you think is “true” or “right” or not. 

Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy? If a thought causes suffering, or if it leads to anything other than peace and love and joy, then you need to drop it, to stop it, to change it, or let it go. The way out of suffering in any situation is to turn the mind around. Not to do so, is to choose suffering. It’s as simple as that. 
 
Of course it may take practice and persistence to train the mind to stop making us suffer. For some of us, it can be like trying to turn a train around. We’ve got generations of habits driving us, and years of conditioning behind us. But the ruthless truth, the unarguable fact is this: no one else ever causes our suffering. There are no exceptions. Regardless of what others think, say or do, and no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, it is only and always your mind that makes you suffer.
 
Thoughts are like foreign invaders that move into your house, take over and rule you. And they remain and rule over you until another thought moves in to replace it!” I know without a shadow of a doubt that I and only I am responsible for all my thoughts and feelings and experiences. I create all the successes and failures in my life. Only I can possibly cause my happiness or end my suffering. And I believe that this is also true for every other “I” in the world. 

I am free. And I want everyone else to be free. To be free is to be unconditional toward life, to say yes to whatever is, as it is. To be free is to extend love toward absolutely everything inside us and around us—to generate conscious, active, all-inclusive love and gratitude—especially when it’s the last thing we’d think to do! This is the “inner work” that Breathworkers are called to do. It is the “work” that ultimately takes us home.

To feel good no matter what is happening in you or what is happening around you means exactly that. It means choosing to feel love and peace and joy again and again—each time as if it’s the first time, regardless of your inner or outer circumstances. Are you willing? If so, the Spirit of Breath will give you all the energy and power you need, all the inspiration required to create this reality, to bring your dream to life! Begin now in truth, simplicity and love.

I’ve been in Santa Barbara, California for over two weeks now. So much gratitude goes out to Serena for hosting all the sessions and seminars here, and for opening her home to those who are drawn to discover, explore, and develop the power and potential of conscious breathing. 

So many people here are learning the art and science of spiritual breathing, and using it to quickly improve their health and well being, drop the past, and overcoming limitations. They are saying yes to themselves and they are opening to new possibilities in life. 

Thank you to Linda and Julie and Sheila and Lonnie and Grace and Julia and Susan and Sandra and Abi and Shari and Kimberly and Georgina and Shelley and Mary and Sasha and Forest and Suzanne… and thank you also to Ivonne and Toby and Christian and Alhia! 

From here, I will head back down to the Baja, to pick mangos and plant bananas! I can already feel the sea and the mountains and the orchard calling me, I feel the hot springs, the cool waterfalls and pools inviting me… I feel the birds and the garden welcoming me.

I want to remind everyone that you are welcome to visit Baja Bio Sana from November onward. We are open to anyone who’d like to offer courses or programs that are in harmony with our vision and purpose. Anyone who wants to connect with nature and their source, anyone who wants to experience a beautiful healing resort, is welcome to visit our little Garden of Eden. 

And if you see yourself coming to the farm at any point in the future, you are welcome to participate now. You can support the planting of more trees and gardens; you can help finance the various building projects and earthworks.


BREATHING EXERCISE OF THE MONTH

An early teacher of mine Tarthang Tulku promotes the art of “Kum Nye Relaxation.” I call one of his core techniques “Equalizing the Flow.” The practice is simple: divide the stream of breath in half. Allow the breath to come and go through both the nose and the mouth at the same time. 

It’s a wonderful practice that makes you more sensitive to some of the subtle aspects of breathing. And it is an easy way to enter a very quiet meditative state. We’ve been playing with it a lot in California lately. And invite you to do the same. I also encourage you to look into more this delightful Tibetan Yogi’s teachings.

TRAVEL SCHEDULE

July 31 to 13: Issyk-kul Lake, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
August 14 to 22: The Hill That Breathes, Urbino, Italy.
August 23 to September 1: Ufa and Neftekamsk, Bashkortostan (Central Russia).
September 4 to 8: Open World Center, Moscow.
September 9 to 13: Breathing Party in the country near Moscow…
September 10 to 24: Vilnius, Lithuania
September 25 to 28: Ukraine (Psychological Association Conference) 
September 29 to October 5: Special Training Program in Kharkov.
October 6 to 8: Kiev? Crimea?
October 10 to 17: Massachusetts, USA.

November 1 to June 1: Baja Life Skills and Healing Arts Training
Programs in Breath Mastery, Permacuture, Organic Farming, Sustainable Community, Sacred Relationships, Herbal Medicine, Natural Living, Hiking Adventures, etc. More information soon…

The following is a letter I recently wrote to a friend, but I’d like to open it up to everyone. In the early rebirthing days, we saw it as a moral obligation to talk about the “death urge” and the possibility of physical immortality. Since the mind draws its energy from the breath, as people learn to breathe more fully and freely, their thoughts become more powerful and creative. And so it is important that we weed out any negative and limiting thoughts from our consciousness. The belief that we have no choice about death is a big one…

Dear Paul, 

I have been reflecting on the feeling that you are not so interested in being on the planet or in your body much longer... But I value your contribution to the world, and I so enjoy your energy and your communications... And so of course I'd like it if you were to decide to hang around forever! So, what do you say?

If we create our reality with our thoughts, then perhaps that explains the phenomenon of aging and the cause of death. The power of intention applies to everything in existence. Who would dare question the idea that death is inevitable? We should! Like a program,
this belief is downloaded directly into our psyche—into our creative mind—before we ever have the possibility of conceiving of anything else. And the thought is reinforced and supported by every culture, society, religion and family. That "we all must die" is perhaps the most widely held negative and limiting thought on the planet.

But instead of changing the thought or dropping the belief, we downplay the value of this life and imagine a higher plane. We tell ourselves and each other soothing stories of a lovely afterlife to make death more palatable—to make the belief in death easier to live with. But maybe it's our stubborn loyalty to death that is killing us. 

I am reminded of people who have a deep need or desire for love or touch or success or whatever... but they also have the thought or belief that they could never achieve it, and so they convince themselves that they never really wanted or needed it in the first place. If we get old and stiff, or if we are in pain or unhappy, then death begins to look quite attractive! We create our suffering and then we invent death to escape it. We see death as liberation. We look forward to it. We bring it on.

I remember a British play from the late 70's, called the "Immortalist." It was a very witty two person play—an interview with a 287 year old man. Neil Cunningham, the actor who passionately played the main character every night for six months, grew his hair back and spontaneously healed himself of several diseases: he actually grew younger! 

One of the lines in the play went something like this: "Have you noticed that DNA is immortal at our expense? We come and go, but it keeps on living. Maybe DNA is a spiral that's out to screw us! Maybe we should scream at it every morning: 'I'm not going to take it any more!' Maybe if enough of us do that, or if we all threaten to kick the bucket at the same time, it will begin to let us in on some of its secrets!"

Is the possibility of biological immortality—physical immortality—really so far fetched? Can the end result of millions of years of evolution really be just a bunch of earth-bound spivs who barely manage to make it 70 or 80 years before turning into dust? Can that really be the universe's plan for us? Spirit is eternal. Consciousness is eternal. The physical universe as matter and energy is eternal. And so why wouldn't a body that is filled with conscious spirit not naturally live forever? Maybe we can include the physical body in the eternal life of the spirit... What if all death is suicide?

Reincarnation seems to be a popular option. But if we are going to come back anyway… then why not just stay here to begin with? Why leave? Shouldn't we have a right to our physical body as long as the physical universe exists? If humans are so smart, how come a number of other species, lower on the evolutionary scale than us, live much longer than we do? How come dirt lasts longer than most humans—if humans are so smart!

What if death is simply the effect of mass hypnosis? What if buying into the idea that we have no power over death is just a form of laziness? What if dying is the ultimate in mindless conformity? What if the "belief" in death and the "reality" of death is the prime
example of a self-fulfilling prophecy? What if by buying into the common belief about death, we are just defaulting to fear or ignorance or conditioning? 

What if what we are talking about is a changeable genetic program? What if death is just a bad habit! Actually, one of my friend Leonard Orr's latest books is called "Breaking the Death Habit." (He also coined the term "youthing." What a great alternative  to aging!)

Many people believe in eternal life, but they don't mean actual physical life—life as we know it, life as we live it. Most people believe that physical immortality is a silly dream. And yet those same people can believe in a pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by? If we can't find or reach our ultimate potential right here right now in this physical body, what makes us think that we'll find it or reach it in some after life? How can destroying our physical body possibly help us one bit? 

Analie Skaren called death "the dreary back door" to the kingdom of heaven. Many people believe that we are now in the “end times,” and St. Paul called death the “final enemy.” Christians are taught that “the wages of sin is death.” To sin is to make a mistake. And all mistakes are mistakes in thinking. Maybe death is a grave mistake! And there’s news that the value of death has fallen. Last report: under six feet!

It just occurred to me, we say that the body has wisdom. But how many of us have asked our body how it feels about our attitude toward death? How many of us have checked in with it to see what it thinks about our plan to simply use it as a stepping stone, a door mat, merely a means to an end. How do you think it feels about your plan to live in it for a while, beat it up, wear it out, and then just dump it and move on to greener pastures? Maybe the physical pain of aging is the body's way of saying "poor me" to itself. Maybe physical illnesses and diseases are the body's way of saying "fuck you" to us!

But don’t blame yourself. How many of us have been allowed to question the inherited thoughts about death? And how many of us have been encouraged to go for any other possibility? None of our spiritual teachers, parents, grand parents, role models, or gurus have chosen physical immortality for themselves. (Maybe they weren't enlightened to it or maybe they weren't ready for it.) Basically, we have simply not been invited, encouraged, or inspired to walk this path.

But what if physical immortality is our birthright? What if it represents the ultimate in human potential? And, what if there are humans on this planet who’ve been alive for hundreds or thousands of years? You say that if that were the case, we’d know about them by now? But would these living examples of the “possible human” bother to make themselves known to us if we are not at all open or even slightly interested in the possibility? Maybe as we raise our vibrations and expand our consciousness, they'll begin to appear out of the woodwork to help us!

I'd like to share that I've been consciously breathing the idea of "increasing aliveness" for over 30 years now, and considering my physical "age," my energy level, and my current state of health, it seems obvious that the body is quite willing to reflect our thoughts and beliefs; in fact it has no choice but to express the being that inhabits it.

You've said that not many people are ready for some of your ideas, and perhaps even fewer are ready for this one! But still, I would like to put it out to the community and to hear your thoughts and feelings on the matter.

Love,
Dan