Breathing and living are not the same thing. A person can breathe for a long time before he actually dies. We all know about the “living dead”, those who walk the earth without the feeling of aliveness.
Would a flower care about its aliveness? Science has proven that it does. Would an animal? Our cat Petey has congestive heart failure. But when the days are mild and the sun is out, he would go outside and disappear for half of the day. Aliveness is when the heart is glad. And the heart must be made glad continuously. The innocence of a small child is aliveness. love is aliveness. A smile, a warm embrace are assurances of aliveness. It needs to be every day, every moment. It is the primary purpose of living.
Sometimes when I breathe in the cold winter air it awakens me.
