Value of Air

Shree Nathji in His teachings laid stress on the fact that we do not count the most essential blessings of Nature, which we have got free of charge. In Mussoorie when a Sikh army general came to seek His blessings before leaving for the Bangladesh war, Shree Nathji asked him to name the things in this room. He manned all that he can see, like the carpet, sofa, photo frames etc. Shree Nathji asked, isn’t there air in this room? Why didn’t you count that? He said “Huzzor Dikhayi Nahee Deti” – It is invisible. Shree Nathji said, but it is most important. If this air is not there for even two minutes we will not survive. And this is free. What if one day air also demands a price? What if we need to pay for our every breath?
I decided to study this fact to understand the gravity of Shree Nathji’s words. Following are the results of that study -
The average adult at rest inhales and exhales something like 7 or 8 litres (about one-fourth of a cubic foot) of air per minute. That totals something like 11,000 litres of air (388 cubic feet) in a day.
The air that is inhaled is about 20-percent oxygen, and the air that is exhaled is about 15-percent oxygen, so about 5-percent of the volume of air is consumed in each breath and converted to carbon dioxide. Therefore, a human being uses about 550 liters of pure oxygen (19 cubic feet) per day. A person who is exercising obviously uses a lot more oxygen than that. Even if a person is in coma and is on life support system where he is given oxygen just to support his internal organs, he needs oxygen equivalent to 3 oxygen cylinders.
Each Oxygen cylinder on an average costs Rs. 700/-
So in one day even when we are totally inactive we use oxygen worth Rs. 2100/-
For one year it becomes – Rs. 7,66,5000/-
And if we consider average life span of 65 years, the cost of oxygen becomes a staggering Rs. 500,00,000/- Rs. 50 million. And this is just to keep you alive, not active. And that also in one place. It doesn’t include the cost of carrying the heavy oxygen cylinders were ever we go.
So know that we understand the cost of air we have all the reasons to thank God for giving us this air to breath (free of cost) every minute of our lives. All the beautiful things in the world, the sunshine, rain, water, love, even the innocent smile on a child’s face is free of cost. We must count our blessings and thank God.
Human is called Adami. (Which is derived from the Persian word Adum) Adami means – A + Dami. A means come and Dami mean Dum or Breath. So it means that as long as there is Breath. As long as breath is coming we are Adami which means alive. The moment our breath stops we lose life. As we say in Urdu “Dum nikal jata hai”
Some Hindus believe that every man comes to this world with a predefined number of breaths. Once a person completes his assigned breaths he dies. I remember my grandmother used to tell me that a person should breathe slowly as if we breathe fast then we will complete our assigned number of breaths fast and thus will die sooner. So slower the breath intake more we live. Now when I remember that it sounds funny. Then it is like controlling the duration of our breath which is hard work. We keep doing that, we very well die of exhaustion soon. I remember what Babaji Maharaj had said. He said that remembrance of God is natural and effortless for Him just as breathing is to the human body. He said that breathing is natural to our body, we do not ever get tired of breathing if we do it unconsciously. But if we try to do breathing cautiously and try to control it we get tired very soon. So for advanced souls remembrance of God is as inherent and natural as breathing.
So next time when you breath in, remember the value of air and thank God that it is free and also remember Shree Nathji who declared that I would ever be with my devotees to protect them just like the invisible air is always around us to keep us alive, to make us what we are – ADAMI.

Comments –

Priya Nath Mehta Beautiful exposition and elaboration of the teachings of HH Shri Nathji an HH Shri Babaji! Yu must be congratulated at every step for the wonderful research you are doing on these teachings which no one had ever done before! You are an ideal devotee!!