By Roshan Jayasinghe
You are breathing now, though you likely weren’t aware of it until this moment drew your attention to what has always been happening in the background, the steady, silent arrival of life itself with every inhalation, and its quiet release with every exhalation.
Air moves in, effortlessly.
Air moves out, without demand.
Breath carries life, yet it never asked for your permission to begin, nor will it ask before it ends.
Somewhere before your first conscious thought, breath began.
And long after your last memory fades, breath will stop.
In between those two silent events, life unfolds.
Before breath, there was not nothing, but something that cannot be named, something you did not know, yet from which you arose.
After breath ends, you will return to that same nameless space, not as loss, but as a natural return to the source that has carried every living being.
And yet now, you are here, suspended within this gentle movement of air, experiencing life not as concept or story, but as the body itself, expanding and releasing, taking in and letting go, moment after moment, without you needing to understand or explain why.
Breath is not something you do.
It is something that happens to you, through you, as you.
We often think that life is something we are supposed to shape, or direct, or control, but life has been moving long before we believed ourselves to be in charge.
Each role you’ve taken, every identity you’ve worn, each memory you’ve stored, all these have occurred while breath has continued, like a quiet stagehand behind the scenes, making everything possible yet never stepping into the spotlight.
And breath never belonged to any role, to any story, to any single person.
Breath belongs to life itself.
You might believe you are living, and yet it is life that is breathing you.
It is life that moves you.
The body rises and falls, not because you command it, but because life is using this form, for now.
Everything that seems personal, your ambitions, your struggles, your relationships, rests upon this unseen rhythm, this breath moving through the body, creating what you call experience.
Breath arrives, and in its arrival, you feel alive.
Breath leaves, and in its leaving, you soften, though you barely notice it happening.
And one day, breath will not return.
And yet nothing will have been lost, for life itself never arrived and never left; only the form it expressed through will have changed.
This is not a sad thought, nor a philosophical theory.
It is simply the way things are.
Before your first breath, there was the unknown.
After your final breath, the same.
In between, life moves, life plays, life breathes.
You may imagine yourself as an individual, as a character with purpose and destination, but if you listen quietly enough, you might sense that you are more like a ripple in a river than a stone upon the shore.
The river flows.
You are its movement, not its object.
So now, as breath continues, let yourself feel it, not as an exercise, but as a quiet recognition of what has always carried you.
Each inhalation is not something earned, and each exhalation is not something lost.
Breath moves, like a wheel turning.
Life continues, without your needing to guide it.
And when it is time, life will stop breathing as you, just as it once started breathing as you, without asking you why.
There is nothing to resolve in this.
No answer to seek.
Breath comes. Breath goes. Life unfolds in between.
And the unknown, silent and complete, holds it all without question.
For now, breath is moving through you.
And that is life.
And that is enough.
About the Author
Roshan Jayasinghe is a humanist thinker and emerging writer based in California. With a background in administration and a deep passion for social equity, he explores the intersections of politics, identity, and compassion through a lens grounded in nature’s own self-correcting wisdom.
Roshan Jayasinghe
Rooted in the belief that humanity can realign with the natural order where balance, regeneration, and interdependence are inherent. Roshan’s reflections invite readers to pause, question, and reimagine the systems we live within. His writing seeks not to impose answers, but to spark thought and awaken a deeper awareness of our shared human journey. Roshan will be sharing weekly articles that gently challenge, inspire, and reconnect us to what matters most.
