© 2002 Jeremy Youst
“I Am that I Am.” As you speak this proclamation you reconnect with the Sacred Circle of Life, you voice a powerful prayer of your unique existence, which is the essence of Divine Breath. With this first tender movement of awareness, you breathe for that which inspires you, for that which gives you life. You become pure ceremony re-enacting the greatness and emptiness of All That Is. You breathe from the deepest stillness, from the darkest void. You enter as the “Word of God”, a bare speck of divine sound uttered in deafening silence. You are spoken into being. Woven through earth and time into a human form of biology, you are a love song, a divine whim, hurled out from profound immobility into eons and eons of change and evolution.
Evolution is simply a spiral song of caretaking genetics through the breath. Each time you consciously choose to breathe, you remember yourself unto God. In the “I AM that I Am”, the first “I Am“ is the inhale; it is the perfect re-enactment of primary spiritual inspiration. The inhale is your intent, and strives for individuation and creative expression. The inhale is a metaphor for how you embrace Life. Is it rushed, is it efforted? Does it begin from deep within, or does it barely touch the top of your capacity and capability. Is it full and robust, or is it shallow and meek like something afraid to exist? How you breathe in reveals how you approach life, and suggests what you still must face in order to be free.
Like a honeybee gathering nectar, the journey of the inhale becomes laden with the power and possibility of sustaining life and purposeful expression within duality. Awareness becomes differentiated and ripe, “potentialized” through the movement of the inhale. As you stretch your intent across the duration of the inhale, you separate from Oneness and build your individuality. Thrust out from the center of All That is, you strive for that which is fulfilling and expresses your deepest longing. Then, as you reach top of the inhale, there is a powerful build-up towards that which you can no longer contain, that which must be expressed: manifestation and release.
In breath we meet the perfect paradox: that which we want and seek to own is that which we can no longer contain. At the top of the breath is the “that”. It is the perfect point that completes your intention; it is the moment that separates action from surrender, wanting from allowing, doing from being. In the beautiful play of movement and stillness that surrounds the top of the breath, you create the very blueprint of manifestation. Does the inhale hold on too long, is it released too quickly? Is the transition tight and choppy, or is it soft and smooth? How quickly do you let go of your part in the play of life and surrender to that which is divine? The effort that has been utilized during the inhale has now reached its limit. The work has been done; the arrow has been pulled back on the bow. The final act is simply to surrender, to let go! At the precise moment the transition occurs, the release happens, and the breath goes out.
The need to breathe is nature’s way of reminding biology how to express itself. The second “I AM” is the exhale, the return trip home to Oneness through the expression of manifestation. Awareness is now realized through movement, it connects with all things and strives for unity and similarity. Your “song” goes out to the world. The instructions for materialization are carried out as a true reflection of what has been gathered and designed during the inhale. This “I AM” is a measurement of your evolution and the clarity of your original intent. It is a synergistic collaboration between who you are, what you want and the laws of the universe. It is a perfect blend of what you have attracted and what you are willing to allow.
The exhale indicates your current level of awakening and skill within the “dream of duality”, and reveals your ability to “let go and let God”. Is the exhale relaxed? Is it forced or controlled? Are you able to put down your “burden of living” and allow Life to be expressed through you? Nothing but perfect surrender is needed. The journey of your desire has occurred, the skill development has happened, and for the moment, what has been sought is about to be found. Through the exhale, that which has been slowly gathered is now released, to return once again through a passage of time into divine awareness and inspiration.
Breathing is the art of becoming fully awake, one integral movement at a time. Through the ceremony of breath, your departure toward diversity that began with the inhale now arrives at the end of its journey, ready to be ushered back into an ocean of Unity. The Source of All That Is is fed. The “honeybees” have made their delivery. At the end of the cycle of breath the exhale releases itself into completion, into a perfect still point, a nexus of new beginning. The final moment of a cycle of breath is the transition point of death and rebirth, when the phoenix is consumed in the flames and is now ready to rise from the ashes, where the witness stands, unafraid, at the threshold of eternity. This is the great silence at the end of “I Am that I Am….”