All of us share the Breath of Life, and none of us possesses it. It's a simple concept, and utterly true. There's no argument against it! And yet, there are—oh!—so many of us, it seems, who do not understand what this simple truth means for each of us. We share one Breath, and it makes no sense whatsoever that we should war against each other to gain advantage, one over the other; for to war against another for any reason at all is to war against oneself, against God: against the Breath that sustains every living soul.

Generally speaking, those who devote their lives to spiritual pursuits agree that the road to peace, which empties onto the grounds of the Tree of Life, is paved by self-denial. Among students of Truth, many consider self-denial to be a discipline limited to fasts against physical comforts, such as curtailing appetite by eating only one helping at dinner, wearing the same coat until it's threadbare, and so forth.

I'll not argue against such sacrifice, nor even against the more worthy fast of preferring the welfare of another above one's own; but the virtue of self-denial is deeper than any of this: it's visceral. Self-denial imposes itself on every understanding by which a person might define himself. Beyond self in every way, self-denial is rooted in our relationship with the Life Breath that hides between the inhale and exhale of our own breathing. It might have written, ". . . exhale of our own breath." But that's the point: our breath is not our own.

We are to honor hwhy with every breath we take, in accordance with the admonition, "You shall have no other gods before me." As creatures, we have control over the inhale and the exhale of breathing, but not over the Father's Holy Breath, upon which breathing feeds. Could we monitor our utilization of Breath as we breathe (approaching congruence with the first of the ten sayings), we would made great progress in denial of self. Deeper yet, could we lose thought of ourselves, altogether, by resting upon and within the Breath, settling into Zen, at rest before the open door the apostle characterized as “prayer without ceasing,” known also as yoga.

Together as One, our bodies comprise the temple of the Breath. Because that concept is reality and not empty words, it behooves us to be mindful of the Breath's Presence within and among us all as we breathe. We ought to pay attention; for to walk in the Holy Spirit is to maintain awareness of the Presence that hides within the Breath we share. To walk as servants in the Father's Breath is to become as One with that Breath, allowing us to serve all as faces of One, denying the very concept of self.

To be mindful of God's Presence within us as we live, move, and have being establishes a kind of triangulation between heart, mind, and the works they engender. This yoga sanctifies relationships and clarifies the distinction between who we truly are and what we apparently do.

Although we are children of God, we sometimes fall short and misbehave; but at times, what seems as error is behavior that's beyond our control, as though taken out of our hands, like the denials of Peter after Gethsemane. Such questions cannot be answered if self stands in judgment of self. Triangulation opens our minds to instruction, and the Small Voice of the Breath calls to us from within the quiet of our open hearts. As we are enabled to hear and answer that call, the chakras—the sephiroth, the buds of the menorah—open unto the fullness of Father’s love and, most significantly, unto the particulars of his counsel, as conveyed within the whispers of the Small Voice in the manner of messages to the Churches of Asia.

Living in dedication to the Breath, we are transformed and shall be transfigured; for beyond the celestial body, the astral body of the East, it does not yet appear what we shall be. We understand that allegiance to the Breath is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and so, we follow in Y'shua's steps, taking up our staves—our crosses, determined that we shall follow, insofar as we shall be enabled.

The sap of the Tree of Lives sustaining us, we drink of Eden's rivers to slake our thirst by giving shape to our thoughts; and we draw strength from the Holy Breath as we climb the hillside path that crosses the needs of Earth and the concerns of Heaven. Children of the Breath, we drink Living Waters to our fill; for the Father's pleasure is that we have Life; and that, in abundance.

Should we seem to lack anything, the fault will most likely be because of error—not "sin," particularly, but error; for our errors withhold good things from us. Our frail helplessness is well known—on Earth, as it is in Heaven! How, then, shall we be weaned from the erroneous counsel of the ungodly, who put such things as commerce, knowledge—any earthly thing, really—above the common-sense realization that we are here for one purpose: to celebrate the Breath of Life?!

If our faith is weak, the arguments of the world are strong; and it's not in our power to strengthen our own faith; for that is the Father's business. Our only remedy is to reaffirm the gesture by which we first began: we rededicate ourselves in living sacrifice to the Breath that sustains us. Re-gathering our thoughts in this manner, we ensure that we share the Breath in dedication to HaShem.

In the Kingdom of Names, coworkers with the Father are provided a place at his table. It behooves us, therefore, to utilize God’s Breath on behalf of the Kingdom the Father is building in our hearts, as a collective and as individuals. With the Presence foremost in our thoughts, God’s Spirit will address even those questions we cannot yet verbalize, and the substance of our dialog with God's Breath, will increase faith and clarify the way forward.

Self-denial does include careful confession and reformed behaviors. Those virtues are important; but to yield lasting fruit in our lives and in the lives of those with whom we interact, self-denial must find its root in the Breath: for it is there—just beyond perception—that we must face our measurements in the mind of God. To value ourselves is unavoidable, but self-denial is essentially the invaluable matter of recognizing God’s primacy in our lives. 

Attaining the vacuum at the Hill of the Skull, self-denial is the gasp of silence in our souls that compels us to accept that the throne of Heaven is mirrored in our hearts, upon which the King sits, measuring our passion. Because we recognize the Presence, our souls take flight as the inward gates of Heaven are lifted up and the King of Glory rises from his throne to greet us in the air, Face upon face. It is God's pleasure to join with us; for owcwhy, the Shout of hy, has been knocking patiently at the doors of our hearts over many lifetimes, whispering our names as they unfold, ensuring that we will be alert on the day the Father has appointed that we should answer his call.

Recognition of incorruptible divinity hidden within the core of the outer husk is the key; but if the burden of recognition were ours—as though it is our responsibility to focus inward eyes, bringing Messiah into focus—the path to self-denial would become very difficult. Personal capabilities would then be the way and the truth in our lives; and skill, not faith, would provide pathways to the Presence. The self we are instructed to deny would then be in control of the machinery of recognition and, thus, of the machinery of salvation, making self-denial all but impossible. Recognition is crucial; for the simple ability to recognize a thing is the gift of God, even as a good wife is the gift of God.

At is core, intelligence is successful utilization of recognition; and, again, the ability to recognize, like the ability to recall familiar concepts when they're useful, is the gift of God. That the mind is able to recognize, collate, and conclude is argument that mental processes reflect the handwork of a Creator. We think as we do because of our design, and the efficacy of our thought processes answers to the Creator's good pleasure concerning that design's functionality at any given moment.

Our words and actions utilize the Breath and are therefore subject to the Breath. In our spiritual lives, as in our natural lives, we cannot even conceive of a thing to be said or done, except God brings it to mind. The Teacher of Righteousness, Y'shua confessed that he, by himself, could do nothing, and that the words he spoke were uttered as he heard them: he didn't speak what he heard, but as he heard.

Tempted in the desert by such things as are common to Man, Y’shua overcame by self denial, not by accomplishment; and in his ministry, he walked among men as though he were a hole in the air: a perfect cipher, in which and through which his friends could perceive the fullness of the Father. He had faith to appear before the multitudes, again and again, without giving thought to what he would say or do; for his soul was surrendered in sacrifice to the Father's will.

Along with brother Y'shua, who was well acquainted with grief, we breathe the same Breath and are subject to the same thought patterns, which argues that we all are the Children of One. The smiles on our faces, the glints in our eyes or the downturns at the corners of our mouths—all these argue that every one of us shares the same Life at a very basic level. Such affirmations of commonality must, in their fullest extension, lead to efficacious thinking; for righteous thought is celebration of the Brotherhood of Man within the unifying context of the Father's Life, which we measure as we breathe.

The Tree of Life can be sensed as a column of holy Breath in alignment with the human spine. The Tree provides a covering o for mortals x, so our days h of laboring together to reach agreement between Heaven and Earth j can be blessed by the benefit y of shared y counsel m. The canopy of the Life Tree is a patchwork of understandings o that knits x God’s Light h into garments j that satisfy y the needs y of everyone m.

Wheels within wheels. The apostles turned the world upside down, teaching that the roots of mortal man are in Heaven, not on Earth—that our lives on Earth resemble a spiral, the line of experience transecting the circle of incarnation, moving through and beyond. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the boundaries of East and West must blur at the end of this present age.

There is no inadequacy of the heart or mind that HaShem hwhy cannot turn to the glory of his Holy Name; for in this temporal land o of transformations x, each of us is called to examine h the relationship j between our willful deeds y and the beneficial will of the Engineer y of our Destiny m. 

Gematria 233  glr:  
The Tree of Lives is the Lord of Creation r, the Shepherd who guides l us through the processes of birth g.

Numerology 80  p  >   8  j; Targum:
He allows us p to descend j and permits us p to ascend j, according to his good pleasure; and we are therefore to give heed to the manner in which we tread the Earth. As reward for self-denial, we shall be reborn as stewards of Life, itself. We are encouraged to keep our shoulders hard pressed to Earth's wheels o of transformation x as we explore h, with care j and humble
diligence y, our Father's gift y of spiritual freedom m.