Inspiration/Expiration

It's interesting how many languages draw a connection between 'Spirit' and 'Breath'. The meaning of Latin spīritus is perhaps only preserved in English through the words inspiration and expiration.

The literal significance of this is evident from Cicero's use of the word adflatu, literally signifying a sudden, unexpected, breath which pushes one forwards or upwards. An inspiration, if you will.

In Hinduism this concept is preserved through the concept of Atman, meaning both God-Self but also descending from the Sanskrit word for breath, Atma. This finds a parallel in the Islamic concept of Nafs, coming from Nafas, or breath.

Nietzsche described Christianity as "life's nausea and disgust with life", holding itself above the World, and I think that this must be the explanation for the divorce in Western European culture of the act of living from the act of breathing.

Something must have happened, in any case, for anima mundi, the breath of the world, to gradually transform to weltgeist, or the mind of the world. In under a millennium the living, breathing, life of the world became abstract thoughts and ideas.