All the Secrets are in the Breath

The Lens of Brahman: The Formless Outside View

This exploration is written via the lens of Brahman with a little help from the lens of Atman.

To understand what this means, we must first distinguish between the two primary perspectives through which Reality is perceived: the lens of Atman and the lens of Brahman.

Ātman names the Self: the Awareness because of which body, mind and experience are known. Brahman names the limitless Reality, Source by whatever name. Ātman is Brahman. These terms offer two teaching standpoints; they do not name two different kinds of energy.

They are identical in essence, yet distinct in perspective:

• The Lens of Atman: The inquiry begins with the apparent individual: “What am I?” The body-mind is limited, but Ātman, the Awareness in which it is known, is not confined within it. “Inside” describes the starting point of inquiry, not a location for Awareness.
• The Lens of Brahman: The inquiry considers the limitless Reality of the whole. “Outside” points beyond identification with a particular form; Brahman is not an observer standing outside the universe. The difference is in the teaching lens, not in Awareness itself.

As the Upanishads declare in the Great Statement (Mahavakya), Tat Tvam Asi (“Thou Art That”): Atman and Brahman are one and the same. They are like a single drop of water compared to the vast ocean, or the empty space inside a clay jar compared to the boundless sky outside. The jar appears to divide space, yet space itself is undivided. Likewise, the teaching does not require Awareness to move from inside to outside. See Ātman and Brahman: Two Teaching Lenses, One Reality.

Being Understanding as ‘The Absence of Absence’ vs. The Illusion of Maya

Understanding reality cannot occur solely through the intellect. There is a sharp distinction between Intellectual Understanding and Being Understanding (Knowing via Being):

• Intellectual Understanding (The Limited View): The mind collects data, applies categories, and creates mental models. This activity is known by Ātman; it does not limit Ātman. However, intellectual knowledge belongs to the realm of measurement where no matter how much is known, more can always be added.
• The Experiential Error of Maya: I use measurement as a teaching image for the naming and apparent division of experience. In Advaita, māyā concerns the appearance of names and forms; adhyāsa is superimposition, exemplified by mistaking a rope for a snake. Under the influence of Maya, the ego mistakenly derives its identity from the content and activity of the mind, trapping itself inside temporary thoughts, labels, and emotional states.
• Being Understanding (The Absence of Absence): Being Understanding is the limitless view from the outside—the lens of Brahman. It is characterized by “The Absence of Absence”.

When information is processed intellectually, it remains a set of concepts. True realization occurs when the conceptual scaffolding is allowed to fall away until it is completely absent, yet the realization remains fully lived.

“The Absence of Absence” points to wholeness without a felt lack. Being Understanding includes and transcends intellectual knowledge; recognition does not depend on maintaining a completely silent mind. I first heard the expression “Being Understanding” from my teacher, Jean Klein.

Breathing: The Four-Part Building Block of Creation

All the secrets are in the breath is an invitation to inquiry. The word “spirit” has a history connected with breath and breathing. Here, breathing offers an immediate encounter with the relationship between body, feeling and thought.

Breathing is not merely a biological necessity; the four-part cycle offers a contemplative map of appearing and resolving. In my teaching, it invites exploration of form and the Source upon which form depends.

The four movements in this teaching lens are:

1. Flow into Form (Inhalation): The coalescence of energy entering physical manifestation.
2. Abiding in Form (Pause/Hold): Energy-in-formation sustaining the material world.
3. Flow out of Form (Exhalation): The release of that which is known and the dissolution of structure.
4. Rest in Potential (Silence): Dissolving into unmanifest potential to prepare for the next cycle.

Emergent Properties: How Breath Creates Space and Time

From the standpoint of awakened understanding, time and space are emergent properties of appearance. I use universal respiration as a lens for exploring this: time measures and describes how experience appears; space describes the apparent relations of forms. Brahman is beyond time and space.

• How Breath Creates Space: In this contemplative lens, appearing form brings apparent spatial relationships. A balloon’s expansion is a useful image of changing volume, rather than a physical demonstration that human breathing creates space itself.
• How Breath Measures Time: Time describes and measures change. A breath offers one familiar rhythm through which duration is experienced. The inquiry concerns measurement and appearance; holding a breath does not stop physical clocks.

The Correspondence of Om, Consciousness, Elements, and Koshas can be depicted in a table.

The following correspondence brings together my contemplative use of breath, Oṃ and changing experience. It is a teaching lens, rather than a chart of physical states or survival limits:

The Four-Part Universal Architecture

The sound A-U-M may unfold through a comfortable exhalation, followed by silence. The correspondences below are contemplative; they do not require sounding A during inhalation or imposing a breath hold:

A. The Sacred Sound of Om (AUM)

• ‘A’ (Inhalation): The coalescence of energy and flow into physical form.
• ‘U’ (Pause/Hold): Energy-in-formation representing the manifest material world.
• ‘M’ (Exhalation): Flow out of form and the release of that which is known.
• Silence after Om: a pointer toward Source, further explored below.

B. Levels of Consciousness (Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad)

The four phases of Om correspond directly to the states of human consciousness:

1. ‘A’ / Waking Consciousness (Jagrat): Focused outward on sensory objects and physical interaction.
2. ‘U’ / Dream Consciousness (Svapna): Focused inward on mental impressions and subtle objects.
3. ‘M’ / Deep Sleep (Sushupti): The condition in which waking and dream contents are not manifest; Turīya is not limited to this condition.
4. Silence / Turiya (“The Fourth”): In my contemplative map of Oṃ, the dot is likened to a point in space that has location yet no dimensions. This describes the symbolic representation, rather than locating Turīya itself in space.

Turīya is called “the fourth” when viewed from the standpoint of the three changing statuses. It is represented by the silence or, symbolically, the dot associated with Oṃ. But from the standpoint of Ātman or Brahman, Turīya is not a separate fourth state or object; it is the ever-present Awareness that illumines waking, dream, and deep sleep.

Regarding OM: The curves, crescent, and dot may be used as a symbolic lens for teaching the relationship between experience and Turīya. But the symbol itself is anātman, known by Awareness. Turīya is Ātman when considered as the truth of the individual, and Brahman when considered as the limitless Reality of the totality. The difference is in the teaching standpoint, not in the Awareness itself.

C. The Elements, States of Matter and Senses

Earth, water, air, and fire are used here as contemplative images of nourishment, fluidity, movement, and transformation. This framework is not identical to the modern classification of solids, liquids, gases, and plasma.

Food supplies nutrients, drinking water supports bodily processes, and breathing brings oxygen to the lungs. Sunlight supplies light and warmth; ultraviolet light can trigger vitamin D production in the skin. Vitamin D is not absorbed from sunlight as a substance. See the NIH explanation. These processes have different biological roles, so fixed survival times and a single elemental sequence are not useful descriptions of them.

Ice, liquid water, and invisible water vapour illustrate different physical conditions of water. Ordinary clouds contain tiny liquid droplets or ice crystals; high or distant clouds are not thereby plasma. Lightning, however, creates a hot, ionized channel of air. The ionosphere also contains ions and free electrons, with ionization that varies between day and night. These are examples of ionized atmospheric gases, rather than ordinary clouds. See NASA’s cloud explanation and introduction to plasma.

Heating or cooling can change a substance’s physical state, depending on the substance and conditions. It does not establish a universal progression through the traditional elements or a mechanism by which breathing converts the body through those states. The elemental image can support reflection while these distinctions remain clear.

D. The Five [Four see note below] Koshas (Nesting Sheaths)

The five koshas offer a traditional way of examining experience through “sheaths.” They are not five independently existing bodies:

1. Annamaya Kosha: The physical Food Sheath.
2. Pranamaya Kosha: The Energy/Breath Sheath (prana).
3. Manomaya Kosha: The Mental Sheath (sensory processing and emotions).
4. Vijnanamaya Kosha: The discernment or intellect sheath. Awareness, the Witness, is not itself this sheath.
5. Anandamaya Kosha: The Bliss Sheath.

My Shift in Teaching Perspective: The correspondence that follows expresses my Source-and-appearances lens. In the usual Advaita analysis, the bliss sheath is also known by Awareness, rather than the limitless Self. In my contemplative presentation, “Anandamaya” is used to point toward limitless fullness, not an additional boundary around Brahman. When viewed through Intellectual Understanding, the Anandamaya Kosha is categorized as the “innermost Bliss Body”—described as “the closest veil to pure Brahman”. But when viewed through Being Understanding (the lens of Brahman), the veil drops entirely, and the Anandamaya Kosha is realized as Limitless Brahman itself.

Note that the Being Understanding view of the koshas sees them nested dolls labelled in the opposing direction such that the innermost sheath is the Annamaya Kosha, the Food Body, which corresponds to the degrees of solidification of the elements where the most dense element is the earth element, and the outermost [limitless] sheath is the Anandamaya Kosha, which as already stated is Limitless Brahman Itself.

Thus the koshas are listed as follows:

Anandamaya Kosha: Limitless Formless Source called Brahman – the Ultimate Element

1. Vijnanamaya Kosha: The discernment or intellect sheath. [Fire Element]
2. Manomaya Kosha: The Mental Sheath (sensory processing and emotions). [Air Element]
3. Pranamaya Kosha: The Energy/Breath Sheath (prana). [Water Element]
4. Annamaya Kosha: The physical Food Sheath [Earth Element]

Correspondence of Elements and Physical Sense Doors

This alignment connects the progressive degrees of solidification of the Ultimate Element (from pure sound/silence down to solid earth) with the physical gateways through which perception interacts with form.

Experiential Silence: Beyond the Label

Special attention must be given to Silence.

When approached through Intellectual Understanding, “Silence” is treated as a concept, a category, or a mere pause between sounds. This intellectual labeling keeps silence trapped within the realm of knowledge and Maya.

Experientially, Silence is known only via Being Understanding — by being it.

In The Absence of Absence, even the mental label “Silence” falls away. There is no observer standing apart to say “I am experiencing silence”. A quiet mind may accompany this inquiry, but Brahman is not created by quietness or lost when a thought appears. “No thing” points to that which is not another object: the limitless Reality of Brahman.

Lengthen the exhalation; let the inhalation follow

In James Traverse’s teaching, watching the breath changes it both quantitatively and qualitatively: the breathing slows and deepens as you watch it. You do not need to preserve a perfectly untouched breath. When gently regulating breathing, begin with the breath out: lengthen the exhalation comfortably, without pushing or trying to empty the lungs completely.

Let the next inhalation arrive by itself. James Traverse’s teaching is to make space through the exhalation and allow the inhalation to deepen naturally, rather than pulling in a bigger breath. Its depth may vary; do not force it to meet a target. Allow any pause to be easy, without a compulsory breath hold.

For a practical introduction, explore breath awareness meditation. This gentle breathing instruction accompanies the contemplative metaphors above; you do not need to manufacture a held pause or a special experience to explore them.

Further Reading

• The True Nature of Being
• BREATHE Course: Seven Parts of Non-Dual Inquiry