=kitc28.txt

[ Italics is back. ]

UNIVERSEL: A COURSE OF MEDITATION
The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis

LESSON 28
WORKING WITH LIGHT - ILLUMINATION
Part 1 of 4         

[ N.B. (sa).  This is the last Lesson in the Kaivan set, so I
don't know where nor in what form Parts 2, 3, and 4 exist. ]

"Hail to the company of all who have become mad and drunk with
desire for the world of Light, with their passionate love for the
majesty of the Light of Lights, and who, in their ecstasy, have
become like the Seven Poles of the world."
SHIHAB UD-DIN SUHRAWARDI, QUOTED IN:  (CORBIN, 1977, 134). 

We have now reached a point where we are ready to work with light,
starting with our own body. Draw your attention around your body.
Instead of focussing on the magnetic field of your body, or subtle
body, can you sense the glow, the effulgence radiating all around
you?

Imagine that you are looking into a gorgeous sunrise in the
mountains. Now draw your attention to your eyes. Do you notice
that as soon as you draw attention to the light in your eyes, your
eyes sparkle?

1) Identify yourself with the light counterpart of the fabric of
your body.

Our bodies draw light from the environmental light, resorb it into
our body cells and radiate it out in the environment. By being
aware of it, you will absorb more light.

PRACTICE:

A good technique in meditation consists in drawing in light as you
inhale, concentrating on the way your body cells jiggle when
nurtured with light as you hold your breath. Then willfully
radiate a lot of light as you exhale. Think that that light
hurtles through space at probably more than 186,000 miles a second
into outer space; it might even bombard the stars.

If you meditate at night, you will become aware of your
relationship with the stars. You will realize that our aura is the
light of the cosmos converged as us. When you sense the light
surrounding your body, think that, "What I call my aura is the
same as the light of the stars." Our body does absorb light
whether of the sun, the stars, a candle or electric light.

On the other hand, light crystallizes as matter - photons can
convert into electrons and visa versa. A crystal absorbs light but
it is itself light that has gelled. In physics waves can
consolidate as 'solitans.' There are reasons to believe that the
template configuring our embryo is a magnetic field. Light is of
the nature of a magnetic field. Maybe we, already as embryos, draw
the light of the stars in our mother's womb.

Exalt in the captivating thought that this is the world to which
you belong, that you are in exile on earth and that behind the
image of your body, you are a being of light.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"It is by this process that man becomes like a luminous star."

THE LIGHT WITHIN

2) Identify yourself with the light counterpart of not your body
but your subtle body at all levels.

If you concentrate intensely on light in the environment and then
draw your attention to the light surrounding your body, you will
discover yourself as an effigy of light of great beauty, and your
physical face will now appear as a mask, through which albeit your
real being is trying to transpire. It seems like a scintillating
kaleidoscopic array of pure effulgence, or the glow of a flame, or
the awakening from the perspective of the human dimension of your
being. One step will lead to a further one.

If you consider your consciousness as a focal point in space,
light seems to radiate from a point located in space: the sun, the
stars, a candle, an electric bulb. But when you turn within in
your meditation, as your consciousness gets inverted, it is
diffused, and consequently your representation of light has
shifted; it is dispersed in an inverted space. Pir o Murshid
Inayat Khan calls it "all-pervading light." We need to clearly
distinguish between the all-pervading nature of light as we turn
within and the radiant light.

We find the same in the words of IBN 'ARABI:

"Remember that light is of two kinds: a light having no rays, and
radiant light. As for the light that has no rays, it is the light
within in which self-disclosure takes place."
(IBN 'ARABI)

SUHRAWARDI:
"I saw the robe of light altogether in me and I was altogether in
it." 
(CORBIN, 1978, 23)

When you turn within, notice that you sense what seems to be a
different kind of light to the light you perceive through your
eyes. It could be illustrated by the light in a white hole in
outer space which surfaces from subliminal levels of physical
reality that we ordinarily call the void as a new-born star.

You will have noticed that the inner light does not radiate like a
lamp for example, but is like a web where everything is
intermeshed with everything else, like radio waves.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Originally the all-pervading light pulled itself together in a
center. Then it shoots its ray, dividing itself as it proceeds
towards manifestation."

PRACTICE:

As you inhale, draw your attention to yourself absorbing light
from the stars. Then hold your breath, turn within, concentrating
and identifying with the all-pervading light. As you exhale, think
that you are converting the all-pervading light into radiant light
as your aura.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"By concentrating on that light, you can be instrumental to making
this all-pervading light manifest as radiant light."

Concentrating on this inner light will enable you to discover
yourself rather than perceive the environmental world. Ibn 'Arabi
calls this vision, to visualize, whereas perception is called
witnessing.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"It is its own light which shows it to us, and that light is its
soul." 
(HIK), SPIRITUAL LIBERTY, AKIBAT

NAJM UD-DIN RAZI:
"I saw myself through the light which things carry in their
essence - not through an extraneous light."
 (CF. CORBIN, THE MAN OF LIGHT)

GLANCE

3) Identify yourself with your glance.

After turning within, cast the inner light, the all-pervading
light, forward through your eyes.

PRACTICE:

As you inhale turn within. Holding the breath concentrate on and
identify with the all-pervading light. As you exhale the inner
light is cast forward through your eyes.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"As the sense of sight is situated in the head, it then perceives
the light when it is turned within; the brain and the sight, so
charged with the light from within, sees through life so deeply
when turned on to the life without."
(HIK),  SANGATHA III

IBN 'ARABI:
"When ambient light is stronger than the light of sight, man
perceives it but he does not perceive through it. Hence unveiling
only takes place through a light which is the light of sight."

[Note by Kaivan: This lesson together with the last dispensations
of the Curriculum, also named as WORKING WITH LIGHT -
ILLUMINATION, is just a repetition of Lesson 6 which was splitted
into parts by the American editor.]

[ Note (sa): 
This concludes my copying of the KIT's etc. collected by
kavian@centrum-universel.com , www.centrum-universel.com
As noted, I took his CD and did a Click_C__Clikc_V into Word
Windows 2000 Professional without  the UpdatePack4 or whatever
it's called, then did a Save_As into text_only .

I have now checked to see that I got all the KITs, and that I
didn't misname any.


As noted, KIT 15 had a number of musical illustrations - SCAN's 
of  a few little pieces of scores, I suppose - which did not copy. 
I'll try to see if I can figure out a way to do that, in the
update of this doc.

I hope this is complete collection of KITs, but I don't know.
There are several gaps in the numbering.

This set runs from 1 through 125, then there is one unnumbered
KIT, then there is a gap in numbering until 132 , then after 133
there is a gap until 136, and the numbering ends with 137.

There are some unnumbered titled KITs in between, but not enough
to fill in the numbering sequence.

I assign these numbers, thusly, eg kit123_1  etc. - the suffix _1
may mean there was a kit123 that if followed, or it may mean that
123 is a sequential number that I assigned.  Ah, ambiguity.
A number of the form kit123a means that I'm not sure if I Saved
kit123 ok, so I did another Save, and me or someone else can sort
it all out later.

 sa=Steve Amdur, Campra, CH-6718 Olivone, Switzerland
23 Oct '05 - 20 Tishrei - 6th day of Sukot - Josef - 20 Ramadan
Modeim l_simcha - Seasonal (harvest) Festivals for joyousness.

16 Nov '05 -- 14 CheShvaN -- Full Moon -- don't yet know Islamic
date -- 
I have now completed the 28 Curriculum Lessons, and I will ZIP
them up seperately.
It took me about 2 weeks to polish them, since there were no
quotation marks in the Kaivan set (and so most likely not in the
original KIT set that he worked form ), and because Word 2000 does
not retain fonts, and so are fortiori the fonts are not in the
text_only version.

In some though not many of the KIT's quotes were not set off in
italics nor by font_change, so I could not put quotation marks
around anything that lacked some sort of citation.  

I need to cross_check Kaivan's set of English KIT's against his
set of German KIT's, to see if the latter holds anything missing
in the former.

PVK's citations in the KITs are often rudimentary, (although most
of his citations of HIK are complete, and in any case, those can
easily be found from the SO HIK CD)

I will now try to dig out as many complete Bibliographic
references as I can from PVK's book, 'In Search of he Hidden
Treasure', and from whatever other PVK works I happen to have at
hand and on disc.
  
Respects and best wishes to all.
As always
Stephen Benjamin Amdur
Steve Amdur
Z.
=================================================================
=====

