The Cycle of Breath and Energy

This is a question that was posed to me about one of my comments on LinkedIn.

Question:
Hi, Would you tell me (Yoga begins at the ending and ends at the beginning) in detail? I could not understand the exact meaning and sir I would like to communicate though my email – abc.vwxyz@gmail.com. Would you please?

Answer: Yoga is about union, my friend. Through yoga, the practitioner works to unify their essence with the Source of All Creating, Sustaining, and Dissolving (‘GOD’). It is through unifying with ‘GOD’ that our practice “Begins at the ending and ends at the beginning”.

Yoga is breath and breath is a gift from ‘GOD’. It is the gift of the breath that sustains us. One breathes as they enter into their practice, they utilize the breath, perhaps by engaging in ujjayi breath
or in various pranayamas, to sustain themselves during the practice, and they finish the practice with the natural breath. However, breathing does not stop at the conclusion of the practice: daily activities are carried out in the usual manner. In conducting daily business, one, hopefully, ascribes to the initiating, sustaining and finishing of the breath. The breath, as we know, does not end: it is a cycle of endless inhalation, pause, exhalation, pause . . . . . How fully one breathes is a reflection of the depth of their practice.

Through one’s yoga practice, they come to realize that there is no ending or beginning to the breath. The breath is not created or destroyed. The end of breathing for one person, one being, is the beginning of breath for another person, another being. As Einstein so eloquently stated, ‘energy can be neither created nor destroyed’. Breath is the ‘GOD’ Given Manifestation of Energy. Breath is the link through which beings on the earth connect with and are connected to ‘GOD’ (Genesis 2:7, KJV); It is this energy that sustains us. Were it not for this energy, contained within the air that we breathe, we would cease to exist.

This Manifestation of Energy is bestowed to all beings on earth by ‘GOD’, the Source of All Creating, Sustaining and Dissolving. This is not stated as Creation, Sustaining and Destruction because that would imply an Ending. There is no ending. If you look at all natural processes on earth, there is Creating, Sustaining and Dissolving and it is through Dissolving that the process of Creating evolves and manifests. One’s yoga practice is a reflection of this natural process.

It is from here that I say that ‘Yoga begins at the ending and ends at the beginning’