Four Breathes

  • Daily – In the early morning, immediately after waking, before any other impressions have passed through the soul.
  • The whole meditation need not last longer than fifteen minutes.
  • In all the periods specified in this exercise, do not go by the clock but by your feeling.
  • Take care to adopt such a position of the body that the body itself cannot (because of fatigue, for instance) be a cause of distraction.
  • Your hands are either held folded, or the right is laid over the left.
  • This exercise must be enacted with the utmost devotion and reverence.
1. I am

As you breathe in and out,

  • Empty your mind of thought.
  • Direct your whole consciousness to the breathing.

While you abstain from breathing,

  • Concentrate on the point lying between and a little behind the eyebrows, at the root of the nose, inside the forepart of the brain.
  • Fill your consciousness exclusively with the words:

    I am

2. It thinks

As you breathe in and out,

  • Empty the mind of thought.
  • Direct your whole consciousness to the breathing.

While you abstain from breathing,

  • Concentrate on a point inside the larynx.
  • Fill your consciousness exclusively with the image

    It thinks

In ‘It thinks’, the ‘It’ signifies the Universal Cosmic Thinking which should live as impersonal power in our words.

3. She feels

As you breathe in and out,

  • Empty the mind of thought.
  • Direct your whole consciousness to the breathing.

While you abstain from breathing,

  • Concentrate on both arms and hands.
  • Fill your consciousness exclusively with the image:

    She feels

In ‘She feels’, the ‘She’ signifies the Cosmic Soul – it means that you should feel, not personally but impersonally, in the sense that the Cosmic Soul is impersonal.

During concentration upon the arms and hands, if you feel as if a force is driving your hands apart; let them go apart, following the line of the force. However, do not suggest this to yourself. The feeling must come quite of itself.

4. He wills

As you breathe in and out,

  • Empty the mind of thought.
  • Direct your whole consciousness to the breathing.

While you abstain from breathing,

  • Concentrate on the whole surface of your body; that is, picture your bodily self with the utmost possible clarity.
  • Fill your consciousness with the image:

    He wills

In ‘He wills’, the ‘He’ signifies God, within whose Will we instate our whole being.