Yoga is the ultimate process of individual feeling one with the whole
existence — call it God or Godliness. And the breath is the vital
bridge between the two poles of existence. Talking on this phenomenon
of breathing, Osho says: It is not just air coming and going through
your lungs. Yoga says the air is just the outer layer of it. Hidden
deep in that layer is vitality. So breathing has two parts. One: the
body of breathing, made up of oxygen, nitrogen and so on, and, two:
the spirit of breathing, made up of vitality, God himself.

He says in The Way of Tao: It is like your body is there, and you,
your consciousness, is hidden deep down in your body. The body is a
protection, a vehicle. The body is the visible vehicle for the

non-visible you. And the same is the case with every breath. The
breath itself is just the outer layer; hidden deep in it is life
itself.

Once you discover that God himself is hidden in breath, you have come
to know yourself. That’s why there is so much insistence and so much
search in yoga, Tao and tantra about breathing. If you simply go on
breathing and thinking that this is just air coming in and going out
you will never be able to penetrate the mystery of it. And you will
remain completely oblivious of yourself. Then you will remain rooted
in the body. You will never be able to know that which goes beyond the
body, that which is within but yet beyond, that which is hidden in the
body but not obstructed by the body, not limited by the body. A beyond
within.

Yoga calls those methods pranayama. The word pranayama means expansion
of life. One has to expand life to infinity in each breath. Buddha has
called his own methods of discovering the innermost core of breath
Anapana-Ssati Yoga: the yoga, the science, of incoming and outgoing
breath; and Buddha has said no other yoga is needed. If you can deeply
watch your own breathing, and watch so meditatively that anything that
is hidden in the breath does not remain hidden but becomes revealed,
you will come to know all.

Buddha is reported to have said to his monks: “Sitting, walking,
standing, whatsoever you are doing, go on doing these things, but let
your consciousness be aware of the breath coming in, going out. Go on

looking at your own breath — one day with the very continuous
hammering on the breath, the temple opens.”

Osho reminds us: The God is hidden in the temple of the breath.
Suddenly one day you become aware that it is not just air. If for you
it is just air, you have a scientific mind but you don’t have the

awareness which can reveal the innermost core of it. Then you can
analyse and come to know how much oxygen is needed, how much hydrogen,
how much nitrogen, how much carbon dioxide, and you can go on playing
with the body of the breath — but you missed the innermost real
phenomenon.

That’s why, if a man is dead, you can give him, pump into him, the
right proportion of oxygen, but he will not be alive. Unless God
breathes in it, unless it contains the innermost consciousness of the

whole, it is a dead breath. Oxygen will pass through the lungs —
nothing will happen.

The author travels around the world to facilitate Osho meditation retreats.