Life.
Nobody comes into the world without warning.
The seed of a new human life incubates for months before it arrives into this world.
We await it with great anticipation, pondering all possibilities for its future.
When a baby is ready to arrive, it creates sensation and disruption until it is pushed or pulled out of the womb and into the world, where its first action is to audibly cry out to inhale fresh oxygen.
There is nothing quiet or subtle about the entrance of life into the world. It is spectacle.
Death.
The end comes without warning. Even when we know it’s coming — as with an illness that lingers for months or when a person is obviously in his last days of life — the ultimate last breath comes without warning.
In this sense, all deaths are sudden.
The heart stops. Breath ceases. Life force drains. In the blink of an eye, a soul leaves the body.
Breath.
The yogis say that we are allocated a certain number of breaths. When those breaths are done, we are done. One of the eight limbs of yoga is pranayama — the science of controlling the breath.
Perhaps that’s the origin of the idiom about “wasting your breath.”
Life force — Prana — is precious. Learning how to breathe and how use the breath are essential skills most people never learn.
Be mindful of where you invest it and how you use it.
How are you spending your life force?
How are you spending your breaths?
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