The Forgetting of Air

Americans don't breath. Thus, the forgetting of air. My title is stolen from a book of the same name by Luce Irigaray. She critiques the thought of Martin Heiddeger and the Western metaphysical tradition. But closer to home Ramana-ji has been talking about the primacy of "space" as it interprets the notion of "consciousness" or "self" in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, especially as understood in the work of Ramana Maharshi.

Consciousness, Ramanaji says, is space become aware of itself. Insofar as space is the place of air, its substance, so to speak, what we possibly have forgotten is the space of air, the place of air. But most importantly, it is the opening to that space in breathing that mediates between space and air. The chest itself expands in space when breathing. It takes in air and expands into space.

It is more than ironic that those of contracted consciousness also contract the chest and lungs and "fail" to breath. They are not aware of their breath except possibly when smoking or when deprived of air.

To see the space of things as opposed to the things in space is to move closer to or deeper in consciousness. The trick is not to turn space itself into another thing. It would be hard to breath in such space.