The inner work of a practitioner of the spiritual breath® exercises is simple. And, there is only inner work.
It is all that matters. No external actions will advance you spiritually. Paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah, “Your righteous works are like filthy rags to God.” Of course, some works are righteous, but most are not. Mostly the ego is bargaining with Spirit hoping to delay, once again, its demise (its fear) or its taming (which is doable).
Consecrating® prayer is the foundation of the spiritual breath practice. It contains two parts: a physical breathing exercise (taught in person) and an inner chant or simran (also transmitted in person).
Simran is an ancient sanskrit word meaning the remembrance of God. It has come to mean a continuous repetition of a string of sacred words. In Sant Mat and other Indian spiritual traditions these are mostly sacred sanskrit words. The student is expected to repeat the simran silently and continuously, both during meditation and during all waking hours as well.
The simran of the Spiritual Breath practice is in Hebrew. It was given to me, John of the Holy Breath, by the Holy Spirit. I was taken high, high into the spiritual realms by an emissary of the Holy Spirit and heard these new sounds. When I returned I immediately wrote them down phonetically and then recognized that they were in ancient Hebrew. The phrase is quite magnificent as it translates to a sacred anthem and prescription for the spiritual breath—really for all creation.
This new Hebraic simran should probably be called a shanah sheket (“to repeat quietly” in Hebrew).
Students of the spiritual breath practice are not instructed to continuously repeat the shanah sheket throughout the day. It may spill over as a reminder, but it is mostly confined to the sacred moments of consecrating prayer.
Nevertheless, the tone has great power. It is spiritually charged at the time received. But its power in this world is dwarfed by its power to transform one’s consciousness. It is so difficult to discipline oneself to the devotion of consecrating prayer, it is a diminishment of that effort and focus to dwell on the power of shanah sheket in this world.
Consecrating prayer requires great, great devotion. The practice of physical spiritual breath exercises requires the shanah sheket to distract and ultimately tame the ego. When done properly consecrating prayer raises the vibration of the consciousness well beyond what might be achieved by mechanical repetition of a simran.
Consecrating prayer is sacred. The shanah sheket is sacred. It is of little spiritual use to repeat it throughout the day. The goal in consecrating prayer is to raise the vibration to a point at which ones consciousness breaks free of the body consciousness and raises up to the Christ consciousness. This requires very focused concentration, not the half-devotion of waking chanting. To repeat the simran throughout the day confuses the body consciousness. It must learn that when practicing consecrating prayer great concentrated devotion is required.
A practitioner will quickly get used to the hard work of devotion. The body likes to work. Saying the shanah sheket at other times can be valuable as a reminder of the attained vibration, but also a bit sad as the recognition that one is unable at that moment to practice concentrating prayer. Raising the vibration of consciousness occurs only in moments of the devotional consecrating prayer. Completing all of one’s undone actions will comparatively be more effective than a half-devotional diurnal chanting of a simran.
Finally, left out of this discussion of interiority is the influence of the spiritual elements of one’s life in general, and during consecrating prayer specifically. There is no part of life that is not Spirit, so it is inescapable. Yet we each have free will, so we are allowed to deny it. Students of the spiritual breath are connected spiritually with the Living Breath® consciousness—an aspect of the Holy Spirit. Without that consciousness consecrating prayer does not work. More on that later …