Breathing: Expanding Your Power and Energy
by Michael Sky
"Every cell of the human body is, at its core, an atomic reactor of the most exquisite design that is continuously engaged in the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter . . . Our breath is the living mechanism that drives this subtle circulatory system."
"Ultimately, this is simple human alchemy. We are learning to breathe spirit into flesh."
"Conscious breathing encourages the expansion of consciousness throughout the human organism and beyond: to inhale consciously is to positively excite and expand the whole environment of which one is a part; to exhale consciously is to support the relaxation of all surrounding and connecting energies."
Go to Amazon
The Power of Emotion: Using your Emotional Energy to Transform Your Life
by Michael Sky
"An ideal life: Emotional energy flows throughout the body in regular, life-sustaining currents and extends beyond the body in radiant, life-connecting fields. You experience this always-moving energy as a quiet, gentle tingling (almost tickling) sensation and a systemwide feeling of simple pleasure. You feel good. This good feeling subsists as your ground of being-the primary matrix through which you perceive, experience and respond."
"Insisting that children control their emotional expression as a necessary aspect of maturity, however, means actively suppressing the pulsing, luminous promise of childhood. Unfortunately, the more that adults struggle with their own emotional energies, the more they will struggle with the naturally bursting exuberance of children and the more they will demand: rein it in, control it, stop it.
Grow up. Now. Or else."
Go to Amazon
The Healing Promise of Qi: Creating Extraordinary Wellness Through Qigong and Tai Chi
by Roger Jahnke
"To demonstrate how very easy Qigong practice can be, try this basic exercise. Simply adjust your posture so that your body is upright and your spine is straight, deepen your breath, and direct your mind to a simple image such as clouds drifting across the sky. You see, it only takes a moment to initiate the Three Intentful Corrections. You may wish to close your eyes and drift here in a state of quiet for a few moments."
"If you are very new to the idea of practice or cultivation, you may need to take a few breaths to really relax. You may have to remind yourself every few seconds of what you are doing because the mind is addicted to its usual pattern of bouncing around. If you have decided to focus on clouds in your mind's eye, then you might just say to yourself every few moments, or on the exhalations of the breath, 'clouds,' 'clouds,' 'clouds.'"
Go to Amazon
Science of Breath: A Practical Guide
by Swami Rama
"[T]he breath is perhaps the only physiological process that can be either voluntary or involuntary. One can breathe, making his breath do whatever he wishes, or he can ignore it, and after a while the body simply begins to breathe on its own. Breathing becomes reflexive. The body can't operate without breath, so if conscious control of the breath is abandoned, then some unconscious part of the mind begins functioning, picks it up and starts breathing for us."
"So if the breath is ignored, breathing will go on anyhow. But in this case breathing falls back to control by primitive parts of the brain, the unconscious realms of the mind where emotions, thoughts and feelings (of which we may have little or no awareness) become involved, and they wreak havoc with the rhythms of the breath. In other words, the breath becomes haphazard and often irregular if we lose conscious control of it.
Go to Amazon
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment
by George Leonard
"Whatever your age, your upbringing, or your education, what you are made of is mostly unused potential. It is your evolutionary destiny to use what is unused, to learn and keep on learning for as long as you live. To choose this destiny, to walk the path of mastery, isn't always easy, but it is the ultimate human adventure. Destinations will appear, be achieved and left behind, and still the path will continue. It will never end."
"The early stages of any significant new learning invoke the spirit of the fool. It's almost inevitable that you'll feel clumsy, that you'll take literal or figurative pratfalls. There's no way around it. The beginner who stands on his or her dignity becomes rigid, armored; the learning can't get through . . . So your teacher asks you to begin by putting your finger on your nose and standing on one foot. Unless there's some compelling reason to contrary, just give it a try. Don't fight the process; surrender."
Go to Amazon
Free Your Breath, Free Your Life: How Conscious Breathing Can Relieve Stress, Increase Vitality, and Help You Live More Fully
by Dennis Lewis
"Conscious breathing not only provides a solid foundation for all the other kinds of breathing work, but it is also, in itself, transformational. Conscious breathing helps us cultivate inner stillness and presence."
"Conscious breathing, also known as breath awareness, provides an intimate pathway into ourselves. Breath awareness is practiced in the world's great spiritual traditions — including, among others, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity — as part of an overall work of spiritual development and awakening."
Go to Amazon
The Einstein Factor: A Proven New Method for Increasing Your Intelligence
by Win Wenger
"Our brains, in which reside all that we think of as the human spirit, are totally dependent upon oxygen. Fully one third of all the oxygen used in our bodies goes directly to the brain. Evidence suggests that the more oxygen we receive, the better our brains function."
"Increasing the flow of oxygen to your brain will accomplish two things. First, it will activate areas of your brain that are usually idle from lack of blood. Second, it will slow down the constant die off of brain cells."
"As more blood flows into the brain, an equal amount flows out through the veins. This increased drainage has the added benefit of washing away toxins and wastes that interfere with brain function."
Go to Amazon
The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama
by Richard Rosen
"However the supreme attainment is imagined, whether as a blissful merging with the Great Self or the quelling of the vicious horses of consciousness and nature, yogis emphasize both practice and study, especially study of sacred texts and self-study (svadhyaya, literally 'going into one's own self')".
"Practice has two poles—an active pole that entails intense and persistent exertion (abhyasa) and a passive one that encourages what yoga tradition calls samatva, an attitude of evenness or equanimity toward the world. Yoga practice is a balancing act between doing and not-doing: we must somehow exhibit all the prowess of the charioteer in mastering his horses and yet remain the same whether in success or failure."
Go to Amazon
One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps
by Kevin Griffin
"I don’t mean to say that I’ve got the Higher Power thing all figured out and I’m on the right side. Rather, this is where I’ve come to. Buddhist practice, in one way, strips everything away, so it’s hard to hold on to concepts like “God.” On the other hand, the practice gives you such powerful inner resources that another kind of trust may supplant the formal faith in God."
"The idea of a Higher Power changes; like everything, it’s impermanent. We learn to trust our own understanding, and to let it evolve. Sometimes our inner landscape is so parched, there’s no sense of power or life; at other times we feel a gentle hand guiding us. Mindfulness, developed in meditation, helps us to see our relationship to our Higher Power in this moment and to work with that relationship in the most helpful way. In fact, mindfulness itself can be used as a Higher Power, as we shall see in Step Three."
Go to Amazon
Breathe! You Are Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing
by Thich Nhat Hanh
"Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don't have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy."
"I am breathing in and making my whole body calm and at peace. It is like drinking a cool glass of lemonade on a hot day and feeling your body become cool inside. When you breathe in, the air enters your body and calms all the cells of your body...This is the key to meditation. Breathing brings the sweet joy of meditation to you. You become joyful, fresh, and tolerant, and everyone around you will benefit."
Go to Amazon
Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung
by Richard Katz
"You dance, dance, dance, dance. Then num lifts you up in your belly and lifts you in your back, and you start to shiver. Num makes you tremble; it's hot. Your eyes are open, but you don't look around; you hold your eyes still and look straight ahead. But when you get into kia, you're looking around because you see everything, because you see what's troubling everybody."
"Rapid shallow breathing draws num up. What I do in my upper body with the breathing, I also do in my legs with the dancing. You don't stomp harder, you just keep steady. Then num enters every part of your body."
"In your backbone you feel a pointed something and it works its way up. The base of your spine is tingling, tingling, tingling, tingling. Then num makes your thoughts nothing in your head."
Go to Amazon
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality
by Joseph Chilton Pearce
"There is a relationship between what we think is out there in the world and what we experience as being out there. There is a way in which the energy of thought and the energy of matter modify each other and interrelate. A kind of rough mirroring takes place between our mind and our reality."
"It has been claimed that our minds screen out far more than we accept, else we would live in a world of chaos. Our screening process may be essential, but it is also arbitrary and changeable. We pick and choose, ignore or magnify, illuminate or dampen, expand upon or obscure, affirm or deny, as our inheritance, adopted discipline, or passionate pursuit dictate."