Advice for Breathing

Question: From the spiritual point of view, is it better to breathe through your nose or through your mouth? Does it matter?

Sri Chinmoy: Absolutely it matters. There is such a difference. It is absurd to breathe through the mouth, unless it is absolutely necessary. The mouth God gave to eat. The nose He gave to breathe in and out, so why do you have to use another organ? Use the mouth only if it is an emergency and you cannot breathe through your nose. Sometimes you are running fast, and you cannot take in enough oxygen through the nose, so at that time you can breathe through your mouth. Otherwise, always breathe through the nose.

Then if one nostril is not working, try always to open up that one. If you see that you are having trouble with both nostrils, early in the morning put cold water on your palm and then try to breathe in to open them up. Otherwise, only if you are running or exercising, breathe through your mouth.

While some disciples are running, they make so much noise breathing through their mouths.

They announce to the whole world that they are running. Others run with no noise. In the Ashram, when I was running 100 metres in competition, right from the start I used to breathe in and make a noise. From 100 metres away, everyone could hear it. I was the only one to make that noise, and it was throughout the 100 metres or 200 metres. For 400 metres I did not make the same noise.

From:Sri Chinmoy,What Love-Power Can Do, Agni Press, 2022
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/wlp