Organic Relaxation

When I speak about enjoying the sensations of the breath of life moving through your body, what I am talking about, at least at one level, is the process of organic relaxation, of loosening the energetic knots that restrict our life force and keep our awareness bound to our thoughts and reactive emotions. It is through the deep enjoyment of organic relaxation that these knots begin to unravel and that what is superfluous in our lives—the unnecessary structures of thought, emotion, and sensation that we have constructed and identified with to support or defend our self-image—let go of their hold on us. Maintaining these structures by believing in what they tell us not only consumes our energy but also keeps us from letting go into who we really are.

To experience a sense of this relaxation, lie down comfortably on a mat or soft carpet with your hands on your belly. Check in on your breathing. As you do so, notice how you are completely supported by the earth. Really let yourself feel this support. Notice the thoughts and emotions that appear, along with the sensations of relaxation that are settling in. Just let them be as they are, without commenting on them or dwelling on them in any way.

Now pay particular attention to your back and spine. Take a few breaths to sense the interface, the vibratory sensation, between your back and the floor. Let your entire back release into the floor. Let your belly rise and fall with each inhalation and exhalation. Notice how your entire body, freed a bit from your identification with your thoughts, emotions, and efforts, begins to relax into emptiness and spaciousness. As this happens, you will sense your breath slowing down and becoming quieter, allowing a new, fuller sense of receptivity and presence to radiate from every aspect of your being. Notice also how more parts of your body are now involved effortlessly in your breath—and how you can now feel the multileveled movements of your breath inside the conscious spaciousness that you begin to sense is what you really are.

Copyright 2009, by Dennis Lewis. This passage is taken from my book Breathe Into Being: Awakening to Who You Really Are.

What Others Say About Breathe Into Being

“We all know that breathing is essential to life. But this book helps us to discover its immense importance not only to physical life, but to the very meaning of what we are and what we can become.”–-Jacob Needleman, author of Why Can’t We Be Good?, The American Soul, and What is God?

“Dennis Lewis has written a very wise and highly readable book about one of the most fundamental insights of the great spiritual traditions: the breath is a mediator between mind and body, and is a bridge to the transcendent. This is a marvelous guidebook in cultivating awareness and living in the now. All valid spiritual instruction is simple and unadorned — as simple as breathing, as Lewis makes clear in Breathe Into Being.”–-Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words and The Power Of Premonitions

“Breathe Into Being is both a fun and a must read, a fountain of practical wisdom for self-exploration that is delicious on the tongue of the soul while quenching our thirst for the knowledge of enlightenment. It is perhaps the most important self-help book – in the deeper sense of that expression – to come out in the new millennium.“–-Glenn H. Mullin, author of The Fourteen Dalai Lamas: A Sacred Legacy of Reincarnation

“Breathe Into Being is a most practical, user-friendly yet profound guide to awakening, with simple exercises that blow away the conditioned mind’s veils, allowing one’s inner light to shine forth. I highly recommend it.”–-Leonard Laskow, M.D., author of Healing with Love.

“Dennis is a master teacher who stands fast in the profound truth that when we welcome this moment just as it is, life works. How simple. How overlooked. How astonishing and wonderful. The secret he reveals: all that we need do is attend to our body’s natural function of breathing in, and breathing out. Nothing more is needed. Listen to Dennis. Breathe. Be still and awaken into living your alive, joyful and harmonious Presence that Dennis so beautifully reveals.”–-Richard Miller, PhD, author of Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga (Sounds True), is president of the Center of Timeless Being and co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

“A refreshingly simple, straightforward, and enjoyable exploration of the connections between body, breath, awareness, and presence. This user-friendly guidebook will help you be more embodied and awake.”–-John Welwood, author of Toward a Psychology of Awakening

“In light of our fast often distressful pace of living, when one can read something that is both interesting and inspiring yet slows us down to breathe easier and effortlessly in the moment, it is a very good thing. Dennis Lewis’ latest book Breathe Into Being does just that. Read it and let it breathe you.”–-Mike White, Director, The Optimal Breathing School and Institute