Thoughts: As a Process of Breathing

Prana is energy; it is the vital force that gives us life. In terms of the physical body, this life takes the form of the inhalation and exhalation of breath. These two concepts are diametrically opposed. We consider them to be one. The term "breathing" refers to the process of breathing, although there are two aspects to it: the inward and outward breath. All energies have polarities, existing in two opposing poles. It would not exist otherwise. Like magnetic poles, the opposing poles produce energy through their tension and harmony.
incoming breath is completely different from outgoing breath, and outgoing breath is completely different from entering breath.

The coming in is like birth, and the leaving out is like death, all at once. Both events occur simultaneously: we are born when we take a breath, and we die when we exhale. Both birth and death occur in the same instant. This polarity represents life energy rising and falling.

This is the tangible manifestation of life energy in the body. Life energy is created, and it expires after our lifetime is over. The incoming breath and the outgoing breath — the day and the night — are both more intense manifestations of the same event.
There will be equivalent entering and departing phenomena in each of the seven bodies: the physical, etheric, astral, mental, spiritual, cosmic, and nirvanic. Thought entering and exiting the mental body is analogous to the inhalation and exhalation of breath in terms of phenomena. Every instant, an idea enters our head and exits it. Thought is a form of energy only.

The energy appears as the coming and going of thought in the mental body and as breathing coming and going in the physical body. Because of this, breathing can alter the way we think. A correlation exists.

Stopping our breathing will also stop our thoughts from coming. In our physical body, stop breathing, and our thoughts will cease in our mental body. Our mental body will also grow restless as our physical body does. The body will yearn to breathe in, and the mind will take thoughts in.

Thought enters and exits. At any moment, your breath may become mine, and your thoughts could become mine. We are simultaneously hurling our thoughts out every time we exhale. Thought exists in the same way that air does; thought may be tainted in the same way that air can be, and thought can be impure in the same way that air can be.
Breath is not prana in itself. The term "prana" refers to the life force that takes on these inside and outward polarities. Prana is not the breath itself, but the energy that inhales the breath. Prana is that energy which affirms itself, that is, the energy which draws in breath and expels it.

Prana also refers to the energy that absorbs and expels thinking.

There is this procedure in all seven bodies. I will limit my discussion to the physical and mental realms for now, as we are familiar with and can readily comprehend them. But the same thing is present at every level of our being. The etheric body, which is our second body, has its own inward and outward processes. We know only our physical body and its prana. Hence, we will experience this process in all seven bodies, but it will feel to us like the inhaling and exhaling of breath. Then we will consistently get things wrong.

Since this is all, we have ever known, we will initially interpret any sensation we have of another body or its prana as the inhalation and exhalation of breath. All that we have experienced is this particular form of prana, or life force. However, in the etheric layer, instead of breaths and thoughts there is influence—that is, influence comes into and goes out.