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81.  Free Health Care                                      3/09/06

It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have
not had time to remake the world. ~~~Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)

    The 3 Foods in order of importance as expressed by G.I. Gurdjieff.
1. Breathing
2. Impressions, (visual, mental, and tactile)
3. Food.

    When we talk of health it seems that we can also consider the ages an individual is at, young~~midage~~wiseage. Each age group tends to think about and reference health in different ways. Their approach to a particular method or discipline/practice also tends to be different. The complexities of any approach can be overcome by simple truths that produce observable positive results. Since the human body is universal in terms of structure, learning about our alignment and identifying 'what are the principles of structural integrity for the human form, works for all ages.

    Being healthy can be related to how you are breathing, which can be conscious or unconscious. Unconscious breathing is were the body just takes what it needs and is fairly automatic. If you run, breath speeds up or if you are sitting breathing slows down. This type of automatic breathing is a process that takes care of our minimal requirements of breath and requires little attention. Conscious breathing comes as we place more attention on breathing as a practice and action.

    We can learn different approaches from the many schools of breathing that exist. Most introduce breathing as a tool for relaxing our body/mind system, which can be effective for just that. Any warnings about breathing one way or another, from my perspective, can be taken with a grain of salt, since most warnings become road blocks to exploration. Personal investigation of a subject like, breathing and alignment, can build a framework of understanding which is ultimately useful. There is a tendency in man to make things sacred and then create rules around these sacred things. Have you noticed that? This tendency can impede personal exploration, growth and evolution, I feel.

    My experience in 43 years of teaching and working with breathing and alignment has demonstrated to me that you can not over breathe. So any right and wrong way of exploring breathing need not be a concern. Trusting the body and our natural intelligences to discover what works remains a useful disposition. We can use breathing practice for different purposes like releasing the body of conditioning, centering our awareness and finding the master within.

    We can take up breathing as a stimulant for both opening the structure of the body and releasing conditioning that is out of sync with what is natural for the body. Conditioning comes under the heading of belief systems which can be local or hidden in the very cells of the body that have DNA traces. An example of a DNA traces could be the reaction people have to ‘cartooning’ or critical examination of traditional ideas that have been maintained over centuries, such as identifying with a religion or country. This can be felt when finding your self reacting to name-calling that you thought you were free of. Something very deep is being triggered and if one breathes and feels the reactivity it may release. In this sense one is relaxing a hidden pattern that could be DNA acquired.

    Breathing for opening the body restores spaces that tend to close down over time as a result of ignorance’s within the acculturation processes, to put it in soft terms. Discoveries in breathing and alignment that help us grow can be viewed as a ‘No Blame’* area since the knowledge is just surfacing. By using new tools we benefit, without feeling we have been neglecting our health.

    Breathing for opening the body works efficiently with the use of alignment knowledge of the body. The reason for this is: 1. it helps maintain the openness gained with any practice and 2. It helps us appreciate our own body as a barometer for what is good and useful for us. We all have this natural barometer as children. A quote from the Dalai Lama may give some credence to the prior statement. “In children, we find what is natural to be the human character. But as they grow up, they develop a lot of conditioning and wrong attitudes. I often feel there is more truthfulness in a small child and I find reasons to have confidence in human courage and human nature.”

    By giving some attention to conscious breathing we attend to our human quality, which naturally brings more grace and dignity to our motion. Breathing practice doesn’t always lead directly to calm or peaceful states since, full breathing practice can expose held energies or somatic experiences that need viewing and releasing. This releasing can be quite energetic as the body dissolves mental/emotional toxins and other indigestibles. Working with a friend or coach during exploratory sessions with breathing is helpful. If one is going ‘solo’ I have observed; the body will not present any thing you can’t handle nor will it hurt it self while working with breath and releasing. Afterwards the good indicators of lightness and calm will show up.

    For health purposes, breathing awareness is primary for our three in one nature. Mindfulness meditation uses this tool and any traveler of the path, who is familiar with developing mindful awareness, understands the grounding aspects of breathing. When mindfulness is combined with using breath to maintain our physical alignment, then the tool of breathing is like the proverbial double edged sword that brings the sharpness of mind and body to the present. As time passes in the practice of both mindfulness and breathing, hindrances dissolve and we arrive at areas where ‘just being’ is a relaxed state with the body. The expansive and contractive aspects of breathing naturally relax as we are at home with whatever is going on in the space. From this disposition, the raw and rugged qualities of humor, joy and sadness of being human have rhythms we can live with.

    Thus our free Health Care system is with us as we acquire knowledge of breathing, releasing and access natural remedies. Trusting our intelligences to find natural solutions to most physical problems seems to be the least intrusive approach. I have heard wonderful stories of the heroism in medicine and don’t mean to demean the field but, I have also heard of individual heroics of people who work out of major physical difficulties. From these explorers we do get many of our alternative health systems.

    On the opening of a hospital, with free service, under the guidance of Sri Sai Baba he says; “There are hospitals with costly equipment and expert doctors, huge buildings and spick-and-span interiors, but they indulge more in profiteering than affording relief.”

* ‘No Blame’ is a concept often used in the I Cheng or Book of Changes.

blessings

Posted by harmon  03/09/06

Comments

Ah, yes, dearest Harmony,
THE MASTER WITHIN.....I have often contemplated Gurdjieff's teaching of THE THREE FOODS (breath, impressions, physical food) and your commentary on the first food and how it affects the other two lights the subject anew. Being an acting coach the second food is of the utmost importance to the actor The audience eats the impression of the actor and to achieve a delectable and dynamic impression both breath and food are needed. Sometimes this impression can change the audience member for LIFE....and sometimes, without enough breath or proper nutrition, it can give an entire audience the mad cow decease. So, by all means, let us breathe full!!! Thanks! Love to you and to all the flowers in your beautiful garden.
Dr. G

Posted by: Geronimo Sands on 03/14/06

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