Maharaji's Mind Farts: The Breath & Breathing
(Prem Rawat's Nonsense Teachings About "the Breath")
Breathing is a natural physical process. Rawat tries to make it sound transcendant, mystical, deep and meaningful and insinuates its a gift that he gives or at least, some divinity does. Wikipedia: Breathing is the process of moving air into and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly by bringing in oxygen and flushing out carbon dioxide. Every breath is individual, temporary and we are not usually conscious of breathing and that is the sensible, automatic, unconscious and most efficient method.
The diaphragm is a sheet of muscle slung underneath the lungs. When the diaphragm moves downward toward the abdomen and the rib muscles pull the ribs upward and outward the chest cavity become bigger and air is pulled through the nose or mouth into the lungs. When we breathe, the diaphragm contracts and relaxes. This change in air pressure means that air is 'sucked' into the lungs on inhalation and 'pushed' out of the lungs on exhalation due to the changing air pressure.
Maharaji's "reasoning" is based in simplification, extravagant hyperbole, straw man arguments and ignorance. This is particularly evident in his increasing obsession with 'breath' from the early 2000s on. Breathing occurs because we cause it to happen, it does not happen to us from an external source, air is not something that "comes into me", it "is not a gift," air is something we take and it does not give the gift of life, it maintains our life. We are already alive before birth, we do not start to live with the first breath. We are alive and so we take the air from the surrounding environment or from a tank of air or oxygen, from scuba diving apparatus, from rebreathers, from an iron lung but from whatever the source we take the air, it is the opposite of a gift.
In fact, there is no such thing as 'breath,' it is merely a word we use to simplify discussing a process of sucking in and blowing out air. The theology he inherited contained the concept of Vitalism i.e. the origin and phenomena of life are dependent on a Divine force distinct from purely chemical or physical forces. Followers of the Rawat family gurus can supposedly feel this force by closing their eyes and concentrating on their breathing while obeying the rules that the Rawat's teach. Prem likes to pretend their are no rules, his are called the three promises which are equivalent to satsang (darshan) and meditation. The former rule about voluntary labor or financial donations is no longer explicit.
Breathing does not just happen, it is forced by our autonomic nervous system. We use 'breath' to describe the amount of air inhaled and exhaled in each cycle of breathing. The simplest way to understand Prem Rawat's breath theology is that the Cosmic form of Prem farts into the mouth of each person, so fragrant, so pure and when you want another fresh breath, Prem obliges. Rawat has used other words in the past instead of 'breath': the Elan Vital, the life force, the energy that is keeping us alive, the Word of God, the Holy Name.
Our breathing system even has a serious flaw, it was patched together by evolution, not created by an omnisicent Creator God aka Guru Maharaj Ji
of all the gifts I have been given, the greatest is the breath that comes into me every moment. It is the most non-judgemental gift that I receive. - TPRF 2005 Thank You CD
That breath! The simplest of all actions and yet, the most profound of all actions. Profound because that's where it begins. That's what keeps happening, all throughout your existence. And when that process stops, you no longer exist. - Copenhagen Denmark. Sunday 24 June 2012
If I say to you that the greatest gift you could have is the gift of the breath, would you believe me? Or a little doubt? But it is true. It is the gift of gifts,so abundantly given, without you ever having to pray for it. - Your Moment, 2014
You and I - as human beings - have much in common. You are fundamentally no different than I am. I am alive; you are alive. A breath comes into me; a breath comes into you.
Breath - the coming and going of this breath - out of nowhere it comes and to nowhere it goes. From this breath comes the gift of life.
I am this temple through which the most glorious of all things that can ever happen to human beings, this gift of breath, flows.
The gift of breath will be given to you freely and abundantly. … And the least will be about your breath, the coming and going of this gift.
The gift of breath is given to you by kindness. And all that that you're given every single day is a gift of incredible kindness.
What we are given every day - the gift of life, of breath, of awareness, understanding, clarity, serenity - you can't buy.
From nowhere breath comes and brings the gift of life to you. Then disappears, then comes again, and brings the gift of life again, and again, and again.
Maharaji's father taught that life is dependant on an external force.
The Real Name of God is also ever-existent and self-dependent in all living beings. It is the only life generator. The difference between a living body and a dead body is the presence and absence respectively of the Holy Name.
Naturally the young Prem Rawat aka Guru Maharaj Ji believed the same:
That thing that is making things alive is the most constant thing in the world because it is the power of God, and this is making everything alive. This is the body, this is a frame. One day something will go out of it and the whole body will become like a plank of wood.
Maharaji's supposedly God-powered force that operates life-giving breath is a bit defective.
When you exert yourself, you feel the need to breathe harder. This is in fact triggered by the increase in CO2 in the blood. The higher the CO2 in the blood, the bigger the impulse to breathe hard. So that's alright, it works. There's a feedback mechanism attached to the CO2 level. But if you start running out of oxygen, you don't feel an impluse to breathe harder. You'd think either increased CO2 or decreased oxygen would trigger harder breathing. That's the way I would have designed it. But no. We only respond to CO2 levels.
So if you go down with Covid, you can be at death's door due to lack of oxygen, and you're unaware of it. There's no trigger to breathe harder. So the medics check your oxygen levels by clipping a little gadget on your finger and they give you an oxygen tube if you're low.
So, breathing isn't some life force thingy. It's a response to the level of CO2 in the blood. So long as your CO2 remains low, your body doesn't respond to any drop in oxygen and without medical intervention, you're in danger of pegging it. It's really pretty basic biochemistry, and flawed at that.
During the 1970s Maharaji continued to reiterate the need for the "Energy Keeping You Alive," the "Holy Name" and the "Word of God." He tried to leave his Indian millenial religion and his media disgrace behind in the 1980s and his language altered. He renamed his organisation from Divine Light Mission to Élan Vital adding what he thought was intellectual respectability to his idée fixe that a separate power or energy was required to keep people alive. The concept of the Elan Vital or vital force or life force has been, like many other pre-scientific superstitions, shown to be redundant and left behind. Rawat has not been able to make the break as his basic doctrine requires it. Without that fundamental concept, the truth of the four techniques of meditation are revealed. They are merely the phosphenes, sounds, feelings and fluids of your bodily processes. Rawat has done his best to remove any specificity from his claims, to make them so vague as to be unrebuttable, but they are still nonsense.
Prem Nagar Ashram, Hardwar, November 24, 1971
From where is your breath coming? Who is making your breath alivethere? Just observe it. You weren't breathing at night, were you? You never thought to take a breath at night. You never said, "Well, I am going to sleep, but yet I will be taking a breath." You just went to sleep. And still your breath was going on. The Word was helping this breath to go further ahead. If we realize that Word, it will be quite clear before us what is making us alive every moment. And what is making leaves alive. What is making birds alive. What is making animals alive. What is making the whole world alive.
Reflections on an Indian Sunrise, 1972
May, 2006
That incredible thing - in it everything is, but that incredible thing is in you, too. You are the drop. Not the liquid drop, you are the drop. The ocean is in you. And yes, you can feel that. I understand that, becausethe same energy that is everywhere comes in me in the form of breath - touches me, brings the gift of life.
Voice of Maharaji website
One breath. Just one breath - coming and going - what is the value of it? It is priceless. There is no amount of money or gold or diamonds in this world that is equivalent to the value of just one breath. People have made so many different advancements. They have gone to the moon. But who can bring back a breath? Nobody.
Maharaji's father taught that life is dependant on an external force.
The Real Name of God is also ever-existent and self-dependent in all living beings. It is the only life generator. The difference between a living body and a dead body is the presence and absence respectively of the Holy Name.
Naturally the young Prem Rawat aka Guru Maharaj Ji believed the same:
That thing that is making things alive is the most constant thing in the world because it is the power of God, and this is making everything alive. This is the body, this is a frame. One day something will go out of it and the whole body will become like a plank of wood.
During the 1970s Maharaji continued to reiterate the need for the "Energy Keeping You Alive," the Holy Name and the Word of God. He tried to leave his Indian millenial religion and his media disgrace behind in the 1980s and his language altered. He renamed his organisation from Divine Light Mission to Élan Vital adding what he thought was intellectual respectability to his idée fixe that a separate power or energy was required to keep people alive.