Audio – How Breathing Creates Space and Time
James Traverse uses “universal respiration” as a contemplative way to explore our relationship with life. Influenced by his studies of Vedanta and the Upanishads, this original teaching extends the image of breathing to receiving, abiding, releasing, and resting. It offers a lens for spiritual awakening and direct inquiry; its language of energy, elements, space, and time is philosophical rather than a scientific model.
This article develops the symbolic model: the elements, the four-part cycle of Oṃ, and the iceberg analogy. Its companion, The Breath of All Things, approaches the same inquiry through everyday receiving and releasing.
You “Breathe” Food and Sunlight, Not Just Air
Eating, drinking, breathing, and receiving sunlight involve different physical processes. In this teaching, James brings them together through a shared image of exchange. Fire, air, water, and earth name traditional elements within that image.
Food supplies nutrients and chemical energy, water supports bodily functions, and breathing exchanges gases. Sunlight supplies radiant energy; ultraviolet B radiation can trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. We do not absorb vitamin D directly from sunlight. “Fire-breathing” is a metaphor for receiving and expressing, including the warmth of passion. See the NIH vitamin D fact sheet for the biological distinction.
Viewing a sunbeam or a dinner plate as a “breath” fundamentally shifts our relationship with our physical selves. We are no longer machines that simply require fuel; we are dynamic systems in a state of constant respiratory flow. Every ounce of energy that enters us abides for a time and then flows out to “rest in potential form that manifests in the next cycle.” We are not static objects, but a continuous conversation with the elements.
The “Ultimate Element” Behind Everything
In this teaching, “Ultimate Element” points to Source, by whatever name. The four penultimate elements offer a way to contemplate its expressions or appearances. “Degrees of solidification” describes this movement from subtle to dense within my teaching lens; it is not a definition of Brahman as measurable physical energy.
The sequence fire, air, water, and earth is a symbolic hierarchy within this teaching. It invites reflection on the relationship between form and what is formless. It does not describe a measured process in which physical energy solidifies into chemical elements.
The Four-Part Architecture of “Om” (AUM)
James relates A-U-M and the silence following it to four phases of receiving, abiding, releasing, and resting. This is his contemplative interpretation. When sounding Om aloud, the sounds normally occur during an exhalation; the correspondences below are symbolic and do not require breath holding.
- ‘A’ (Inhalation): This is the coalescence of energy—the initial flow of the formless into a specific form.
- ‘U’ (The Pause): This is the “hold” after the inhale. It represents the material world, or “energy-in-formation.” It is an image of temporary abidance within appearance.
- ‘M’ (Exhalation): This is the release of that which is known—the flow of energy back out of the form.
- The Silence: A pointer to Source, rather than another object or a required interval between breaths.
The silence following Oṃ invites attention beyond a particular sound. Turīya is called “the fourth” from the standpoint of waking, dreaming and deep sleep; it is not a separate fourth state or object. It is the ever-present Awareness that illumines all three. The symbol of Oṃ is itself known by Awareness. Ātman and Brahman name two teaching standpoints, not two different realities.
The Iceberg Analogy and the States of Matter
“All the secrets are in the breath” is an invitation to inquiry. The word “spirit” has a history connected with breath and breathing. A natural scene can help us explore the elements without requiring a perfect physical equivalence between a philosophical model and states of matter.
Imagine an iceberg at sea on a partially cloudy day. This single scene contains the entire spectrum of universal respiration:
- Solid (Earth): The ice of the iceberg itself.
- Liquid (Water): The sea surrounding the ice.
- Gas (Air): Invisible water vapor in the atmosphere. Visible clouds contain liquid droplets or ice crystals.
- Fire: Sunlight is used symbolically here. Ordinary sunlit clouds consist of droplets or ice crystals; they are not plasma. The Sun contains plasma, and atmospheric examples include lightning’s ionized air channel and the ionosphere’s ions and free electrons. See NASA’s explanation of atmospheric plasma.
Ice can melt and water can evaporate, but these physical changes are an analogy for the teaching. Breath does not turn matter through all four states within the body. NASA explains how clouds form.
Time, Space and the Teaching Lens of Breath
From the standpoint of awakened understanding, time and space are emergent properties of appearance. Time measures and describes how experience appears; space describes the apparent relations of forms. Brahman is beyond time and space.
A breath offers a familiar rhythm through which duration is experienced. Movement and relationship make the inquiry immediate: receiving, abiding, releasing and resting. Changing a breathing rhythm can change the felt texture of experience; it does not give us command over physical time.
The Potential in the Pause
The four-part cycle of intake, pause, release, and silence is a recurring contemplative image in James’s teaching. It invites attention to change and relationship in everyday life.
As you move through your day, notice an exhalation and allow the next inhalation to arrive comfortably. There is no need to impose a pause. Prāṇa is the breath within the breath. Prāṇa is Flow. Let sound, silence and sensation be known. What is the Awareness in which the whole encounter is evident? The body is known by Awareness; Awareness is not contained by the body. For the fuller teaching lens, read All the Secrets Are in the Breath.
The Breath of All Things: receiving and releasing in everyday life
Leave a Reply