Proceedings: Day-2

Download: Some Refrences to Deep Breathing

Opening Presentation
Fred Lawlor

Fred Lalwor welcomes the participants in this session to observe the World Interfaith Harmony Week in 2021. He explained the mission, the vision and the strategy of Spiritual Heritage Education Network, the organizer of this event to educationally usher in an era of world interfaith harmony. He then presented the agenda and the presenters of the day.

Names and Forms
Shiv Talwar

Names and forms limit the nameless and formless One God of the universe. We all are kin through this God. Loving this God makes us love the neighbour regardless of who that neighbour is while the love of the relative God of our community tends to limit our love only to the followers of our faith.

We can see the light of the One God through the relative God of our faith community if we contemplate on the multiple names and forms of God in our respective scripture(s).

Imam Habeeb Alli presented on the 99 Names of Allah in Islam on Feb 6, 2021. Similarly Hindu scriptures have multiple names of God; the video refers to 1000 names of Lord Vishnu. In addition, Hindus have various forms of God appropriate to a name or a group of names. Contemplation of various names and forms, where applicable, enables us to see the light of the One God, the only parent of all existence, through the relative God of our faith. We then can love the entirety of existence as one family.

Raise Your Consciousness, Breathe Deep
Shiv Talwar

Breath is life. When we do not breathe, we do not live. Yet we let breathing run its natural course. It is like letting life run naturally without any conscious charge of it on our part. We breathe 24/7. Ordinarily, breathing runs unconsciously without volition or awareness. If we want some control on life, we must learn to breathe consciously and practice conscious breathing on a regular basis.

Autonomic breathing is shallow and fast. It is so because of our inbuilt instincts of survival, sustenance, procreation, ego identity and love of me and mine keep our autonomic nervous system in a state of arousal.

Autonomic arousal keeps our lungs breathing fast, our heart pulsing fast, blood circulating with a high pressure and digestive system running at a slow pace. In addition, there is little coherence between various life processes of the body and the mind. Mentally, we are not at peace and our behavior is reactive. And we are not aware of all that.

With conscious slowing and deepening of breath, we calm our autonomic nervous system, slow our heart rate, lower our blood pressure, and improve the pace of our digestive system. Mentally, we get peaceful and our behavior gets considerate and conscious. In addition, there is more coherence between the the processes of the body and mind. It is not fate but us who then take charge of our life when we take ordinarily unconscious breaths consciously.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. 

      ~~Carl Gustav Jung

Contemplative Life and A Practice
Jeff Genung

Jeff Genung makes his presentation of contemplative life. In addition, he leads the participants into a visualization practice.

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