Talks with Ramana Maharshi - February 4th 1935, #6

[Guest guest]

............

What is the relationship between the regulation of thought

and that of the breath ?

 

Maharshi :

 

Thought and respiration , circulation , etc .( vegetative ) activities are

both different aspects of the same - the individual life.

Both depend upon ( or metaphorically , "reside" or "inhere" in ) life.

 

Personality and other ideas spring from it like the vital activity.

If respiration or other vital activity is forcibly repressed , thought also

is repressed. If thought is forcibly slowed down and pinned to a point,

the vital activity of respiration is also slowed down , made even ,

and confined to the lowest level compatible with sustenance of life.

In both cases , the distracting varieties of thoughts is temporarily

at an end.

 

The interaction is noticeable in other ways also. Take the will to live.

That is thought-power. It sustains life when other vitality is almost

exhausted and delays death. In the absence of such will power ,

death is accelerated. So thought is said to carry life with it

in the flesh and from one fleshy body to another.

 

 

.............

=====================================

Talks with Ramana Maharshi InnerDirections Publishing, 2000 page 22

====================================