Beyond the Breath: Shiva Sutra 3.31, Part 3

In our final installment of Shiva Sutra 3.31 we are asked to pay attention to not only the breath, but the endless space beyond the breath…that perfectly gradual slide into stillness that we all experience at the end of each exhale. This space between our breaths is the same as the space between our thoughts, our days, the events of our lives. This ‘middle space’ is actually where the continuity of consciousness resides— known by many names: Turya, Shiva, Witness, God. This seemingly small space after each breath is a doorway to an infinitely large space, a crack in the boards if you will, a light shining in to show us the way out of our daily suffering. But to fit our awareness through this crack we can’t tense up and get small, we must relax and get large, very large. We must harmonize with the expansiveness that resides within us, the sky of the heart, and by doing so, we become that infinite space beyond the mind, the senses and even beyond the breath. 

Quotes from this Sutra:

“3.31. sthitilayau //This universe is the expansion of his energy in objective impressions and in the dissolution of those impressions.

“If God consciousness were not existing throughout, then how would you be able to travel from one state to the next, from the dreaming state to the state of deep sleep, and from the state of deep sleep to the waking state? Between each of these states, there is a gap, a point where one state has ceased to exist and the next state has yet to begin. When you direct your consciousness from waking state to the dreaming state and from the dreaming state to the dreamless state, there is a point, a gap, when your consciousness, having left one world, has not yet entered the next world. How could you travel through that gap if God consciousness did not exist in that gap? So God consciousness must exist throughout. It is why the commentator Kṣemarāja says “there would be disconnection of your consciousness.”

“It is said in the Śri Kālikākrama:

That which exists, that which does not exist; this differentiation of existence and nonexistence and their connection [is only maintained by God consciousness].

This whole universe is absolutely pure, without any support, and one with the knowledge of the consciousness of self. If that consciousness of self is revealed and perceived, then at that very moment, he is without a doubt liberated in this very life. (Kālikākrama Śāstra)”