PVK COURSE ON MEDITATION, 1998
Lessons 25-31 INCLUSIVE
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Lesson #25:  The Retreat Process, Part I 

	Many in the Sufi Order of the West consider the retreat process to be an integral part of their spiritual training. I wish to give particular emphasis to the retreat format as a means of enabling personal transforation. 
Individual, small group and large group retreats are available at a number of centers in North America and Europe. Retreat guides at these centers have undergone extensive training in the retreat process before being certified a retreat guides in the Sufi Order; in addition, many retreat guides are counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists by profession. 
	In the retreat process, the structured patterns and concepts of personal identity are dissolved in a psychologically protected environment. Wherever possible, retreats are held in nature so that the beauty and healing properties of a natural setting complement the retreat process. Diet is generally simple, vegetarian and non-dairy. Often silence is maintained for the period of the retreat. Individuals are encouraged to leave behind thoughts and concerns of everyday life in order to "go within" to discover a deeper self and fundamental inter-connectedness with all dimensions of being. This altered consciousness gives an opportunity to recognize qualities in oneself not always perceived in everyday life, and affords a new vantage points from which to vie - one's life and problems. Finally, consciously integrating these instincts into the fabric or personality, one is prepared to re-enter active life, with a renewed vision of identity and purpose. 
The Sufi understanding of self-transformation utilized an alchemical terminology that has been developed to describe the process of transformation. We often think of the alchemists as the primeval chemists, but in fact they were really both psychologists and scientists because they assumed the principle "As above, so below; as below, so above," which meant for them that the same processes that make for the transformation of metals in the womb of the earth also make for the transformation of humans at the psychological level. This is called the ars regia, or royal art. 
	In our Sufi retreats we are using one of the techniques devised by an alchemist named Valentius. Basically, it has two halves.The first half is called solve and the second half coagulae, solve meaning "dissolve" and coagulae meaning, in our modern terminology, "rebirthing." Both parts are essential, and in fact there is no use going through the rebirthing process unless one has first gone through the process of dissolving. 
Saint Francis refers to this dissolving process when he says that in order to become what we really are, we have first to go through a stage where we become nothing. This is the "dark night of the soul" referred to by St. John of the Cross. In psychological terms it is a breaking down of the self-image, the ego structure that one builds up over time.  It is interesting that life itself does provide for this to some extent through various sorts of crises. For example, you lose your job, your relationship is broken with your spouse, you are without a penny, you have an accident, and there is a death in the family. Everything just goes wrong all at once and sure enough, you are suddenly going through a crisis. 
	Now, the outer crisis is always paralleled by an inner crisis. One loses one's self confidence, one's sense of values, one's sense of direction and purpose, and is finally thrown into total confusion. This is truly the dark night of the soul. Or, one may find oneself in a situation where there seems to be no issue, no right thing to do, no escape. This is what is called being in a bind, a no-win situation. Actually, of course, the bind is in the mind, because a bind is really the horizon of one's insight. The situation appears to be such that there is no way out. It is only that one cannot see it. In this type of situation nature itself provides for a breakdown which is for the purpose of a breakthrough as it were. That is, one has to go through a crisis and experience the breakdown in order to come into the clear again. 
	There is an English psychiatrist, R. D. Laing, who has this idea of a "breakdown that avers itself to be a breakthrough." Laing considers that it is natural and sometimes even necessary for a person's psyche to break down. It is a sign of the vulnerability and pliability of the psyche, which otherwise would remain sclerosed. In other words, it is sometimes the only way in which one can undergo change. But of course, one should be very carefully guided through this breakdown. Guidance is essential. Otherwise, the crisis becomes chronic and one can sink into a state of schizophrenia or depression or whatever. This is why the psychologists of the future will have to be illuminated beings. And by illuminated beings I mean people endowed with a very high attunement and deep insight who can see the real issues behind the apparent ones. 
	They will also have to be able to guide people beyond the breakdown and through the rebirthing process. Having passed that dangerous threshold between the breakdown and breakthrough, one can start to work with rebirthing. Or at least this is the order specified in the original theory of the ars regia. 
I tend to differ somewhat from the traditional alchemists at this point, because I feel that we already have to work with rebirthing while the breakdown is taking place. You'll find this in nature. For example, in the healing of wounds, the new skin or tissue grows before the damaged skin or tissue is eliminated. I am very wary about letting a person go through the dark night without some replacement during the process. 
In the traditional alchemical process there are six stages of breakdown and rebirthing. We have already talked about the first stage, the "dark night of the soul." 
	The second stage is called "the rise of apollo." It is what Jung would call the formation of a new sense of the Self to replace the old self. The ego is replaced by the Self. It is integration at a higher level. Typical of this is a reference that Jung makes to the alchemist who said that one must be careful when distilling mercury does not escape the retort. This means that if you lift consciousness beyond its usual limits in terms of the personality, it tends to get lost or dissipate. This new sense of self, developed in the second stage of the alchemical process, lifts the point of reference of one's being a peg at a time,so to speak. The alchemists also call this "extracting the essence of one's being" or hanging on to the essence while letting go of the contingency. In the process of rebirthing, the essence of one's being is extracted from all the different aspects of the personality that have been overlaid upon it. Once that essence has been extracted, then it doesn't matter if the rest of the being is dissolved, because that extract is the most important thing. When the fragrance, which is the essence of the flower, has been extracted from the flower, the rest can be thrown away -- that's the contingency. 
	Hanging on to the essence, then, is what saves one from insanity in the dissolving process. This is in fact the cure -- to make the person conscious of his or her real being. Then even if the apparent being breaks down, one is able to survive. If you look upon your personality as a continuity in change and then reach into the consciousness of what you have always been, beyond all change, that is the essence of your being. That is what we do in the practice of samadhi, and it is still part of the second stage. The Greeks put their initiates through that same practice in the Eleusinian mysteries, which is where the term "the rise of apollo" comes from. 
This process is carried even further in the third stage. The third stage is called the "immaculate state." The state of nirvana in buddhism corresponds most closely to this third stage. This is where one gets to the source of life, beyond all forms. 
	In yoga it would be the state of nirvikalpa samadhi, or "formless absorption," where one becomes oblivious to the manifested world and is conscious on the subtler planes. It is represented by the Virgin Mary, the crescent moon, and the water of life. It is acondition of aloofness and detachment -- of inner peace rather than joy. And this is the end of the dissolution process. It is only after one has experienced oneself as pure spirit that one can proceed to rebirthing. 
Rebirthing is the fourth stage proper, although as I said, there are aspects of it in the dissolution process too. This stage is called alchemical marriage, the "betrothal" between Mother Earth and Father Heaven. It is said that at the moment of birth, two worlds meet. On the one hand, there is all that one has inherited from heaven, and on the other, what one is inheriting from one's ancestry. So rebirthing is always the integration of two different things which merge into consciousness. 
	An example of this sort of integration as it applies to working with the personality would be to work on two complimentary qualities in attempting to balance the personality such as kindness with power, instead of just kindness; or truthfulness with insight, instead of just truthfulness or just insight. 
It is interesting that in the process of rebirthing, one has to struggle against the image that other people have of one. There is a proverb that says a prophet is without honor in his own country, and this is because people hold you down into the image that they have made of you and which you have made of yourself. So when you have undergone a transformation you have to affirm your being; and unless you can affirm it, people will bring you right back to where you were before. That is why the fifth stage is the affirmation of your being, when you face and overcome the temptation to follow the easier path and just fall back into your personality. 
	The Tibetans have a teaching that may help in this regard. They like to stress the fact that our self-image is precisely that -- an image, a mental creation, an object of our imagination. Consequently we can make of it what we want. It is not given. Our bodies are given and we can influence them only to a limited extent, but our self-image is purely the product of our own creative imagination. 
	It is not only our self-image, but even tile very assumption of individuality which limits us. I think that is why, for example, Buddha speaks about anatta or "non-individuality." The assumption of being an individual is our greatest limitation. That is why the paradigm that I teach now is thinking of oneself as a cone whose base is the whole universe and whose apex is what we think ourselves to be. This image is intended to remind us that we are not just the apex, but the whole cone. Actually there is some reconciliation of the irreconcilables in the pyramid, because somehow the apex is a function of the base and the base is a function of the apex. They influence each other. 
	The sixth stage is called by the alchemists "the materialization of spirit and the spiritualization of matter." It is a veryextraordinary thing that matter experiences through spirit, and spirit experiences itself through matter. The materialization of spirit is also called incarnation, while the spiritualization of matter is called resurrection. 
	For me the sixth stage really has to be divided into two parts. The first part -- the materialization of spirit -- is an awakening "in life", which is the opposite of samadhi. This is where one experiences one's consciousness as a cone -- the divine consciousness funnelled into what we think is our own personal consciousness, not just the apex. This is why awakening in real life means being aware that one's consciousness is the divine consciousness funneled down, and refusing to let it be limited by the apex of the cone. One can actually practice this while walking in the street. Instead of thinking "I am looking at this," "I am looking at that," one can think "I am the divine consciousness looking at the universe." 

Lesson #26: The Retreat Process, Part II

Breathing Practices:
	In laying the foundations of a retreat, each day is divided in sessions and each session begins with a breathing practice, a wazifa, and at the end of the day, the dhikr. 
Before beginning our morning practices, it is advisable to bathe or shower, to brush one's teeth and tongue, to cleanse the nasal passages with warm salt water by cupping one's hand, placing salt water in the palm, inhaling through the left nostril and exhaling out of the right nostril. One can also allow the water to expel from the mouth into a sink to cleanse the nasal and throat passages. One teaspoon of salt per cup of water is a good proportion. Begin gently with this purification practice and follow your own body's signals for how much is enough. 
Always begin a breathing practice by prolonging one's exhalation, then inhale and again prolong the exhalation. This is preparatory to every breathing practice. 
	The first breathing practice I feel every mureed should do and which , Murshid gave to all mureeds at their first initiation is the purification practice or the baptism of the four elements (earth, water, fire, air). This practice is explained in lesson #2 of this course. Murshid suggests that we do five breaths for each element, which is twenty breaths in all. There is no retention of breath between inhaling and exhaling and one does not hold the breath too deeply while inhaling or exhaling. This practice is both centrifugal and centripetal. 
	The second practice is an ascending/descending one. One is still working with the magnetic field so one does the two first purification practices in one: that is, as one inhales, one is drawing earth energy up the spine and as one exhales, one isbringing spirit down the spine. It's a little more complicated than that because you know, there is a danger in kundalini of bringing the gross energy into the finer chakras at the top of the spine, therefore, one should transmute the energy as it rises rather than just bringing the gross energy into the higher chakras. "We transmute the energy when we work with the different colors of the chakras. Begin inhaling and imagine the color red in the first chakra (muladhara) at the bottom of the spine, continue inhaling and imagine the red turning to a bright salmon in the second chakra (svadashthara) located in the area of the ovaries for women, the prostate glands for men, then visualize orange in the third chakra (manipura) located in the solar plexus, the color yellow in the fourth chakra (anahata) located in the region of the heart (the secret heart in the center of the sternum), the color green in the firth chakra (vishuddha) located in the throat center, the color blue in the third eye center (ajna), and the color indio turning to white light in the seventh or crown center (sahasrara). These chakras are named and pictured in lesson 11, page 6. The progression of colors from red to white light gives you different kinds of vibrations and enables you then to attune yourself and consequently, you will protect yourself against the grosser energy in the higher chakras. In fact, as one is exhaling, the energy of pure spirit descends so one is evacuating polluted energy at the bottom of the spine. This is why we call it an ascending/descending breath. 
	The third practice consists of inhaling, holding the breath and exhaling. In this case the first aspect of the practice would be in the cosmic dimension; that is, if when one is drawing the energy from outer space into the force field (one's magnetic field) you hold your breath, you are having access to the inner energy, that is, inverted space, the energy that emerges in inner space which is new energy that flows into this universe from a white hole and then you exhale. In your exhalation, you're not just radiating out the energy that you took in but you're bringing fresh energy that emerged from the inverted space and radiating it out. One is identifying with one's aura. The more advanced stage is that one is converging the light of the universe. As one holds the breath, one is in contact with the all pervading light that Murshid talks about in shagall and as one exhales, one is radiating light that has emerged from the depths as well as fluorescing light that was originally converged from the universe. This breath may be carried over into the practice with light because as one inhales, one is absorbing light from the universe, like a crystal and identifying one's body with a crystal in its capacity to reflect light. 
	The fourth practice is also an ascending/descending one, but this time one is holding one's breath and as you hold the energy, you are drawing earth energy up and transmuting it as it rises through the spine. That energy catapults you up so that when you hold your breath, you are in touch with pure spirit. Hold yourbreath, and as you exhale, you are quickening your magnetic field with pure spirit, descending. In the case of light, as you breathe in, you are passing in review, each one of the chakras representing the color of light of each chakra, as explained in the second breathing practice of this lesson. Then, as you reach up to the crown center at the top end of the sweep, hold your breath and think of yourself as being a luminous intelligence, uncreated light, rather than an aura. As you exhale, you illuminate your aura with the light of pure intelligence. So there are two things: the aura which can be measured physically and the light of pure intelligence which is not a physical light. Christians call it the "uncreated light" from Gregory of Nyssa. 

Practices to Facilitate Turning Within: 
	I would give priority to a Tibetan practice to help one turn within. The Tibetan practice is this: Place the nail of your left thumb on the phalanx of your left ring finger, make a fist and place it under your right shoulder. Make the same kind of fist with your right hand but keep your index finger out. Your index is now going to press alternately, the different nostrils. Press on the right nostril; inhale through the left nostril and consciously draw the energy into the solar plexus, into the void in the center of the vortex. One is absorbing the four winds inside the solar plexus (or beyond the threshold of the solar plexus.) As you exhale, you exhale through the left nostril and the energy that emerges is fresh energy from the heart center because the heart and the solar plexus are considered to be the two poles of the same center. One is an inlet; the other is an outlet. Do the same exercise with the right nostril as you hold the left nostril. Inhale through the right nostril, drawing the energy into the solar plexus; exhale radiating energy from the heart center through the right nostril. Next, place your right fist under your left shoulder so that now, both arms are crossed like Osiris in the Egyptian myths, like St. Andrews's cross and you are now absorbing the four winds in the solar plexus. The four winds are: left, right, above and below. (This practice is a good follow up to the previous practice about the energy of pure spirit from the top of the head and earth energy at the bottom.).  Now you have the two sides (left and right) and as you consciously draw in through both nostril from the four cardinal points into the solar plexus, you hold the breath, keeping your concentration void as you exhale, radiating energy from your heart center. So it's in through the solar plexus, out through the heart center. This will help you to turn within. 

Lesson #27:  More Breathing Practices to Facilitate Turning Within: 

Murshid speaks of Shagal as the practice par excellence for turning within. Murshid considers this for advanced mureeds so be sure to consult your guide about this practice. (See Lesson 5 for explanation of Shagall and illustration of how to still the senses.) This is a more advanced form of shagal. 
The practice of shagal is the same as the Hindu practice called Yoni Mudra. Sometimes the Hindus use the word shell, capacity. Yoni means womb. It's getting into the place where creativity emerges, that is, the inverted space. Perhaps you have seen those statues of three monkeys: one who has indexes on his eyes, the other on his mouth and the third in his ears. See no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil. One should be very careful to keep the eyeballs turned upwards so that one does not damage one's retina or does not press in the retina because one could have optical illusions by pressing the index on the retina and thinking that one is seeing light. Be careful with the ears as well. Try it. Breathe in through the right nostril only and hold your breath, just one breath at first, and take away your hands but keep your eyes closed for a little while. You will have the feeling of having turned within. It's one of the practices that's the most dramatic upon consciousness. 
Mureeds often ask why one breathes in through the right nostril for shagal. The human being is constituted on the same basis as the planet but a little more complex. The energy of the magnetic field doesn't just rise vertically but swirls up in two spirals which are very similar to the double helix of the DNA and the sign of Aesculapius (the caduceus). The direction of the swirl is counter clockwise. That is the opposite way that the planet turns. But the winds are in the opposite direction; they are clockwise. (If you are looking at the earth from the North Pole, the prevailing winds are clockwise.) Human beings are, on the whole, right handed. That means you are swirling counterclockwise. All of this is based on the laws of Gauss. Your right hand is a dynamo turning towards the fingers so you are inducing a current in your thumb. If one is breathing through the right nostril one is reinforcing the swirl counter clockwise, inducing the current in one's spinal chord to lift one upward. 
Murshid suggests the shagal early in the morning or in the evening, just before going to sleep. Often I do shagal sitting in bed before lying down and then again while lying down with or without the hands. This turns one within while you are going to sleep. When you awaken in the morning, do shagal again to ensure a continuity. It's a very powerful means of maintaining an attunement. 
The light one experiences is all pervading and therefore, very different from the light which we understand as physical light. We are used to thinking in terms of our perception, that we see light but, in fact, we're not seeing light but we're feeling light. The word seeing is not appropriate. Murshid calls this the undertone of the universe, like a kind of drone or buzzing sound. That's probably what Pythagoras meant by the Symphony of the Spheres. It is the same with sound; one is not hearing sound but is resonating with the sound of the undertone of the universe. The Hindu word for this experience is shub-dub; the Sufi word is saute sarmad. 
There are nine different sounds which Shiva described: 
1.  the sound of the leaves of the trees bristling in the wind,
2.  the cooing or whistling of the wind,
3.  a sound of running water,
4.  the buzzing of bees,
5.  the sound of gongs or bells,
6.  the clashing of thunder (sometimes sounds like cymbals),
7.  the sound of the vina.  Shiva invented the vina by taking two gourds and attaching them to a bamboo stem, used guts from dead animals and strung them.  The sound that emanated from the vina is considered to be a very sacred sound.  Metal strings do not accomplish the same experience.
8.  The sound of what Murshid calls the symphony of the spheres, and
9.  the choruses of angels complete the nine sounds. 
San Kirpal Singh, a wonderful Guru who died some years ago, began schools where people sit for hours and hours listening to what is called the sound current. I was close to him. He did not advise people to say mantrams or wazifas because he thought one would prefigure the sound instead of just listening to it. But my thesis is that by affecting the wazifa and especially, by listening in after saying the wazifa and saying the overtones, one prepares oneself, sensitizes oneself for these very high tones. 
In addition, there is almost a smell of perfume like the perfume of roses. Some mystics are supposed to exude this perfume at the moment of death. A perfume fills the air of the room. One experiences a strange kinesthetic feeling, a sense of touch very different from the physical body, a kind of ecstasy of the flesh being transmuted into pure spirit. It is the feeling that one has when one has shifted from body consciousness to etheric or astral consciousness, a moment of euphoria which is felt in the body. One thinks it's in the body; it's not in the body. It's a feeling of the etheric body, an outburst of energy. It's very difficult to describe that. 
So during shagal, while you have your fingers on your ears, eyes and mouth, it's very difficult to listen to the sounds of the universe. When you take your hands away and stay in your concentration, the chances are that if you are in a very high state, you will be resonating with the sound of the universe in the different aspects. Some of you might hear a buzzing sound or the sound of bells or whistling, especially if one producesovertones. That's a great science that we are trying to develop. One can extend one's auditory range through producing the higher sounds, like a staircase, which enhances consciousness and causes it to rise. 
Now, about the taste. There is a passage in Murshid's teaching where he says, "The mouth is endowed with a sense of taste but the inner organs are endowed with a more subtle sense of taste." Most of us are not aware that the taste of the liver or the taste of the pancreas or the duodenum differ unless we get indigestion. There is a kind of esoteric chemistry that takes place in the body. There's the gross chemistry, the digestion of the food and out of that food, very subtle elements produce amino acid changes. Hormones, neuro-transmitters and enzymes are an example of that very fine chemistry. My paraphrase of what the Tibetans say is, if you concentrate very intensely on the solar plexus and on the pituitary gland, each of these chakras corresponds to a plexus. Each plexus is related to endocrine glands. For example, by concentrating on the solar plexus, you are going to enhance the secretion of adrenalin. If you concentrate on the pituitary, you're going to enhance the endorphins which have an effect on the psychological attunement of your being. One experiences that as a taste. If you are sensitive to the flush of the hormone in the blood, you can have the impression of tasting ambrosia, nectar. As we practice shagal, we should have our eyes turned upwards and the bottom of our tongue curled and pressed against the palate, near the soft area at the top which is in close proximity to the pituitary gland. It gives a taste that something's happening. There is a flush of hormones from the pituitary gland. (See Lesson 11 for chart of glands.) One could already say that the formation of the esoteric chemicals in the body is evidence of the transmutation of the flesh of the body into very a fine substance. If, indeed, the body participates in the process of resurrection, the body itself is getting finer through this concentration. 
So remember, place hands in position as in Lesson #5, breathe in through the right nostril, hold the breath, breathe out through the right nostril 3 times, sit quietly and explore your experience of the more subtle senses.  

Lesson #28:  Pranayama

PRANAYAMA
Pranayama is the Hindu practice, part of a whole system of yoga. One prepares oneself to hold one's breath very long by strengthening the muscles of the diaphragm and also the throat by yoga asanas. If you do not do this and you hold your breath, taking In more oxygen than you do normally, the increased pressure of the air in the lungs will press against and extend the diaphragm, press against the heart, liver, pancreas or stomach and cause some physical disorders. Therefore, Sufis who do not have the hatha yoga practices do not advise one to holdthe breath too long. The objective of yoga is mastery of all the autonomic functions. 
For pranayama, there are many different positions for the hands but one of them is with the index finger on the third eye, the thumb of the right hand on the right nostril and the middle finger of the right hand on the left nostril. You have one hand free and if you are doing a lot of breaths, you can use your rosary or mala beads with your left hand. Move the beads with the left thumb, one by one. 
In pranayama, breathe in through the left nostril; hold your breath; breathe out through the right nostril. Then breathe through the right nostril; hold your breath; out through the left nostril. Do this alternately and then breathe through both nostril; hold the breath; exhale through both nostril. In pranayama, inhale 4 beats, hold 16 beats, exhale 8 beats. By a beat I mean a heartbeat which is a little less than a second. It takes some training to time your breathing to your heartbeat. You have to be very calm. Breathe very slowly; hold your breath between inhaling and exhaling and you'll find that when you hold your breath, you can hear a kind of double thump of your heartbeat. You might feel it in the region of the heart or as a flush of blood in your arteries. You might feel it in your arms or your whole body. If you are able to synchronize your breath with your heartbeat, you get into an extremely harmonious condition. It is one of the most relaxing things you can do, to synchronize these two things. 

For the Tibetans, holding the breath for five minutes is not anything excessive at all. What they're saying is that if one is very calm and peaceful, one doesn't need so much oxygen. On a retreat, holding one's breath according to one's capacity makes one very calm. There is no need to rush. Remember, the advantage to holding your breath for a long time is that you can get in touch with your eternal being. You suspend time. Of course, the Tibetans carry this very far. The body is brought into a state of hibernation from slowing down the breath. The body gets even more into a state of hibernation if you're meditating in the cold. That is agreeable to the Samadhi state. It's the anabolic state instead of the catabolic. 
The next stage in pranayama is that when you hold your breath, you turn your eyeballs upward and you have your tongue pressed against your palate. The more advanced form is that as you breathe in through the left nostril, you are conscious of the current that rises in the left, the lateral nerve trunk outside the spinal chord. You experience or promote the lifting of energy along that lateral trunk as you inhale through the left nostril. As you exhale through the right nostril, you enhance the descent of the current in the right lateral trunk of the spinal chord. When you inhale right, then you draw the energy up from the right 
The spinal chord and you exhale left and descend through the left. When you inhale through both nostrils, you draw the energy up through the central channel of the spinal chord and as you exhale, you bring the energy down through both central channels. 
The important thing for the yogis is that moment when the two currents meet at the bottom of the spine. That's where the kundalini force is. It's like the positive and negative pole of an electric current. For example, when they meet, there is a flow of energy and that energy is brought up the spinal chord. That's called Kundalini. That is also true at the top of the body in the pituitary gland when the left current and the right current meet. Kundalini descends as one exhales and the energy descends both lateral channels, meets in the spinal chord and rises in the central channel. 
At times, you can work with both ends: bring the energy up through both lateral channels and descend through the central channel to balance the two. This is more complex. The more advanced form of pranayama is to be found in the Tibetan practices which are described in lesson 11, page 4. A review: instead of concentrating on the lateral currents that rise, left and right, concentrate on the spirals that are swirling clockwise or counterclockwise. Figure this out as you experiment. If you stop up your right nostril and breathe through your left nostril, the energy will start ascending from the bottom of the spine. It swirls to your left and then front and then right and then back so it is swirling, ascending and descending clockwise. 
(That is, if you look at your body from the top.) You are descending by a different staircase than the one you came up. There are two spiral staircases that crisscross. 
When you inhale through the right nostril, you are swirling up counterclockwise, ascending by the same staircase that you have just come down. When you exhale through the left nostril, you are swirling downwards counterclockwise, down the staircase that you came up in the first place. 
When you breathe in through both nostrils, the energy swirls upward in a double helix. Imagine that the energy criss-crosses in front of the second chakra, in back of the solar plexus, in front of the heart center, in back of the throat center and in front of the pituitary. Every chakra is just like a lotus. It has a root in the spinal chord. It double loops; that's theory. Experience for yourself that it really double loops at each chakra. It will take some time to experience this. 
The Tibetans speak of the spinal chord as a shaft in which there's a void. Every chakra is a kind of black hole in a sense, a void. The solar plexus is in the center of the whole system. Imagine that while the energy swirls, criss/crossing to spirals, it's being sucked into the spinal chord. It's ascending and at the same time, converging towards the center. So even if you'reconcentrating on the two lateral channels, they converge toward the center. You know that circumambulating the center strengthens the concentration on the center. As you inhale through both nostrils, you may be aware of these two spirals but at the same time, you will be concentrating on the central axis. This happens as you exhale too. 
If you concentrate on the swirls, you are doing kundalini. You'd bring those two currents together at the bottom of the spine. It's earth energy that spirals upward like the smoke of a fire because it's subject to the motion of the planet. The energy of pure spirit descends in the central axis in a straight line because pure spirit doesn't have any resistance to matter. I have discovered this from practice, not theory. 
In kasab, which is the Sufi practice, you do not breathe alternately. You breathe in through the left, hold the breath, exhale through the right several times successively 13, 5 or 7 times). Then breathe in through the right, hold, out through the right the same number of times, successively. Then breathe through both nostrils, hold, exhale through both nostrils the same number of times as above. 
The rhythm in kasab is either: inhale 4 beats, hold 8, exhale 4 (for beginners) or advance to 5-10-5, 6-12-6, 7-14-7, and so on according to your capacity. 
The position of the hands in kasab is: the thumb of the right hand is placed under the chin and the middle ringer on the right nostril. The palm of the left hand i s on the back of the right hand and the thumb of the left hand on the left nostril. 
Experiment with pranayama and kasab and see what happens to you. God bless. 

Lesson #29: Passive Volition 

Expanding consciousness or reaching beyond the ego transcendentally, (one thinks upwards) is only the first step in meditation and actually proves misleading because around the personal vantage point which is a very point. This type of thinking results from an act of the personal will which is equally limited, as it is connected with the personal vantage point of consciousness and the self image, as well as the notion of individuality. The Buddhists pinpoint this error by teaching anata, the illusory nature of the notion of the individual self. 
One needs to learn passive volition in which there is no individual act. It is the opposite of the usual way of thinking; it is the experience of being acted upon instead of acting. The ancients called it signification pasiva. You cannot try to do this; that would prove a contradiction. To try to use your will to arrest the will is a contradiction in terms. 
The only way to make things happen is to identify with the force that breathes in as you inhale, that is, the life forces of the universe now converge. Beware, because one easily falls into the trap of imagining that one is drawing these forces in. Jnrnask that hoax and see that it is founded upon a mistaken judgment, like an optical illusion. If you succeed in achieving passive volition, something will click in you, a kind of "aha" breakthrough. Now do the same but in the transcendent dimension. There are two stages here: 
1. Think of yourself as being thought of, rather than thinking. For example, someone is thinking of you. Now you can imagine how you look or appear to that person. But think it as God (or some transcendental who is thinking of you. thinking of you, he/she a work of art. 
 
The second stage is the ultimate one; your thought is the divine thinking. There is no "you" as an entity that ensues from that thinking, is aware of that thinking or now serves as an instrument of that thinking or thinks isomorphically with that thinking. You are that thinking!  
Not that your thoughts are the divine thoughts.  There is no such thing as your thoughts because there is no such thing as you. The notion of you is an erroneous way of thinking. 
Note that this requires one to consider in a first stage, the idiosyncracies of one's personality as a formation that has not constitute one's real being. 
In a second stage, one needs to think that this personality is the personality of God, glorious, beautiful (albeit disformed, disfigured, maybe defiled), like a fruit that has rotted but is not one's self. That is, one must absolutely refrain from identifying with it. That also means to refrain from guilt in its inadequacies and vanity in its splendor. In the Yoga or Buddhist meditations, one is oblivious of those idiosyncracies, that is, of the sphere of qualities actuated at the existential level. One is oblivious even of the archetypes thereof, namely, the level of "metaphor." But in Sufism, one awakens in existence instead of beyond existence and does not wish to bury one's head in the sand. Consequently, one is aware of the way the divine qualities are manifesting and actuating. But it is the awareness that this is the being of God in its many splendored modalities rather than thinking it is one's personality that makes all the difference. 
When meditating, one's mind is carried beyond its middle range mode of functioning into the transcendental mode which may at first seem baffling because unfamiliar. Faced with this totally different way of thinking, the ordinary mind jumps to the conclusion, "Why, this is totally contradictory! How can things be so and the opposite at the same time?" 
It is not surprising that the software, the programming of theuniverse, is bewildering for the mind in its usual exercise. To cull the slightest grasp of the nature of this software, one has to understand that it is based on complementarity and/or polarity: the polarity of an electric current or yin and yang. In computer language, not either/or but and. 
Here is the application in meditation. Both the vantage individual and the grasp of being at the passive end of the divine action (signification passiva) are valid perspectives, in fact, complimentary. From the vantage point of the individual, the physical world appears as a reality taken at its face value. Our problems here are in the way we assess them, as factual situations called upon to be dealt with, ad hoc. But in the mode of passive volition, we see the program behind the way the physical universe manifests to our senses, therefore, we are able to judge our assessment as illusory. 
This process can he born out by physics. According to Dr. Karl Pribham, "The way that we assess the universe is the way our brain processes sensorial input. Dr. Kosipsky says, "The map is not the territory." Dr. David Bohm shows that the mind currently interprets the universe in its "explicate" mode, every object occupying a distinctive location in space. But one could conceive of an alternate and complimentary mode, which he calls the "implicate state," from which perspective everything is holistically related in an undivided wholeness. The notion of space gets inverted; everything is everywhere. 
In the mode of passive volition, you do not awaken from illusion; the divine vantage point shatters and also integrates your vantage point into a holistic view. As the Sufis say, "God awakens in and through you as you." In this perspective , which Pir-O-Murshid calls awakening in life, one realizes that the purpose for the software (programming) is in the hardware (us). That is where the hardware becomes an actuality, not an illusion. 
Our meditation practice now consists in alternating between these two vantage points. Through this practice you gain mastery over the setting of your consciousness instead of just being conditioned. 
But there is a further step. Can you reconcile these two vantage points? Admittedly it is difficult. Perhaps you may only achieve it during a short-lived flash. You will notice at those moments that one feels one has got it. Meditating thus, you will be able to recognize your problems as very real indeed, but at the same time you'll not lose sight of the programming behind them. You will even see your contribution to that programming. 
If you achieve doing this, you will be illuminated; you will have awakened. The "aha" feeling here is incomparably more overwhelming, in fact, devastating.
              

Lesson #30: Incarnation to Resurrection Ya Mawjud; Ya Qayyum 

Recall, that in the practice called Baptism with the earth, you
breathe in through the nose and exhale through the nose. The
whole idea is to take advantage of the condescension of mother
earth to absorb our pollution. That's very kind of her but one
mustn't overdo it. One allows the polluted magnetism of one's
magnetic field to be drained in the earth. One encourages it; one
thinks of it and by one's thought, one helps this to happen. It
happens anyway but one enhances that action. There are always two
aspects of each one of those breaths: exhalation and inhalation.
On the exhalation, one is allowing the polluted energy to get
cleaned up but on the inhalation, one is drawing new energy into
one's being at all levels, not just the body or just the magnetic
field. Unfortunately modern humans have, to a very large extent,
lost the contact with nature. Now, more aware people are
beginning to realize how important it is to know how to draw
energy from nature. The End rishis and sanyassins draw energy by
sitting on the ground or on the street so that the bottom of the
spine stays in contact with the earth. The consequence is that
one really does experience the flow of energy through the earth,
through the bottom of the spine and all along the spine. 
I advise you to sit against a tree and really experience a kind
of communion with the tree. You will find that you can actually
really experience the rising of the sap in the tree against your
back and it will help you to encourage the flow of energy in your
spine. It's a wonderful experience and probably one of the
reasons why, in the tradition of the Hindus, the ascetics always
sit with their back to a tree and draw energy in India, they make
these lovely platforms under the trees so that people can sit and
meditate under them on the platforms. If you have a garden, you
can build a platform in such a way that you can sit in a
comfortable position. When standing, the energy flows through the
soles of the feet, especially if the feet are bare. 
The next step for understanding the whole value of what we're
doing is to really feel and see the way that the cells of the
body, the molecules, atoms, electrons, and protons within the
earth get transmuted. There is a continual conversion of
electrons into photons and matter into light. What is even more
interesting is the conversion of matter into energy. That's
happening all the time throughout the universe and that's
happening in our bodies. It's extraordinary that one can
consciously enhance the transmutation of the body, physical
matter as we understand it, into an energy field. Eventually, one
becomes pure spirit. I remember a rishi one time, such a
wonderful being whose name was Sita Ram. He was bubbling over
with energy. He was about 86 or 90 years old but his energy and
joy were fantastic. He just pumped energy into all of us. He was
experiencing resurrection before death and that's what the Sufis
say, "Die before death and resurrect now." You can start at 20;
you can start when you are born. 
The way to do it is the secret of the alchemists. They were not
just working with metals; they were working, with how one can
transform the body and work with the psyche. The art of alchemy
was transmitted to the Sufis, as a matter of fact, through the
Arabic alchemists. These are some of the secrets that have come
through the Sufi Order. When you exhale, you experience the way
that the polluted magnetism of your body gets turned into the
earth. By polluted I mean that magnetic fields have a certain
coherence about them or can be an admixture of very different
types of magnetism which lack clarity. You experience this as a
draining. 
When one is meditating, one always thinks of drawing oneself
upwards, aiming upwards. There are certain meditations which are
directed upwards but in this case, you definitely transfer your
attention down the spine and that does facilitate the down-flow
of energy into the earth. As you inhale, you are experiencing the
transmutation of the matter of the self, if you follow through. 
Actually, it would be very good if we could know more about the
cells of the body. The electron-microscope doesn't help us to see
the cells of the body pulsing because the cells are already dead.
There are new microscopes in which you can see the cells of the
body moving. In the latest research, one is able to catch the
flashes of light as the cells divide and to see the vibration
rate frequency pattern of cells in the course of division in
mitosis. So if you could actually see this, it would make it
easier to visualize the cells of your body as a kind of feedback
system.  You can exercise some impact with your will upon what
the alchemists call the process of transmutation. 
The cells of the body act like aphasic crystals in which the
atoms are all pulsing at a certain frequency pattern. In organic
matter, the phasing can vary and that's why we call it aphasic
crystal. The cells act like crystals in the sense that they are
able to absorb light from the environment. What happens is that
the electrons are something like planets in their orbits. When
one orbit is full, they move to the next. When they happen to be
exposed to light, the furthermost electron, like the furthermost
planet, starts using this light as energy. Light is energy. It
keeps turning around and using this light as energy to a certain
degree so it starts wandering and the whole atmosphere is what
you call in an excited state. And that's what we call ecstasy on
the whole body or on the whole psyche. When it's used up all its
energy, it all goes back to where it was before. There's more
energy but the energy is emitted as light. That's why the atoms
are not only made of light but they actually radiate light.
Occasionally, one of those electrons plays truant. It says, "I've
had enough of this; I've chosen freedom." It sets off and it
becomes a free electron.
It can get transmuted into a photon so that part of the body
together. It has obtained some further degree of freedom. So it
is experiencing resurrection. In the end, the whole process goes
on and the electrons continue to live and will be transmuted into
photons and the whole body will get resurrected.  Resurrection is
true; it is proven scientifically.
While you re doing this practice, you can enjoy resurrection. 
You can visualize the cells and see them getting into an excited
state. Your consciousness of them will enhance their activities
and you can see and feel that the energy of the magnetic field is
enhanced by the fact that the cells are activated. There's a
further Phenomena which is also happening also happening and that
is that the magnetic field can be transmuted, can flip from a
state where there's a lot of wattage and not much voltage to a
state where there's a lot of voltage and not much wattage. That
is what we mean by the difference between Quddus and Hayy. Quddus
(spirit) is very high voltage and not much wattage and Hayy
(life) is a lot of wattage and not much voltage.
This new set of wazifas I suggest for the practice of baptism
with the earth are very meaningful. You will free yourself at
many levels, not only the body level or the magnetic but at the
level of the psyche. The wazifa for incarnating is Ya Mawjud. You
feel yourself as the denizen from outer space who has landed on
planet earth in order to experience conditions in the existential
realm. The wazifa for resurrection is Ya Qayyum. The conjunction
of these two Wazifas is stupendous. On the one hand you are
experiencing the incarnation, on the other, the resurrection.
Very powerful. The ultimate realization would he like viewing
yourself in the universe. Ask yourself, "What am I doing in the
universe; who am I?" You can see the whole thing whatever you
are, one can define having interfaced and intermeshed and
interfused with the fabric of the universe in the form of the
body that your parents offered you. That's a way of describing
incarnation. It's not just mind and body; it is the polarization
of these two that you are experiencing. The old fashioned view
thinks the body is dark and so I'll toss it out. No. It's the
interfusion, interaction of the relationship.  Now let's look at
the extraordinary experience of
resurrection. Using the image of flowers, draw the essence of the
flower, let the contingent part of the flowers disintegrate, and
the flowers will live forever. The process of thinking is like
the honey from the petals. It's perfectly good honey. That's the
secret of resurrection: drawing of the quintessence of that which
is contingency. This is happening all the time in the body. The
theory of the process is negentropy, the opposite of entropy.
It's at the cost of using up energy that information is gained.
When we are looking at resurrection, a physical event is
transmitted into a psychic event. For example, when you experience
something like an accident, at that time, you remembered exactly
the color of your car, the name, kind of day, color of the
clothes or the people involved. Now all that you remember is the
anguish in the face of the person that was hurt and the feeling
of guilt on the person who hurt her. In other words, an event
that took place in time has now been registered, has been
internalized in your memory. But in order to internalize it, it
has to he stripped of all the contingencies so that just the
essence remains. That's the meaning of resurrection. Otherwise,
life wouldn't make sense. If all that we experience and dream in
the course of our life gets lost at the moment of death, it
doesn't make sense. There must be a process whereby the
experience is kind of quintessentialized and eternalized. That is
what the alchemists were working with.
Even a scenic picture that was joy to the eye can remain
continually in you, in your psyche, And be part of your being.
That beautiful scene of nature has now become part of your being.
It was outside and now it is inside, in your psyche, passing from
the eye through the psyche. To understand that, you have to
understand a law, that there isn't just one dimension of time.
Now scientists are recognizing two or even more dimensions of
time. What I'm talking about would be an experience of moving
from transiency into transcendence. Memory is a very good
indication of something that happened in time and that moves into
eternity. The Sufis have a theory, a vision, a way of looking at
things. They call it azaliat. It means that point where there's
no more change in time, such as when the pendulum is suspended at
the top of the pendulum swing. It is a point of timelessness. So
in this practice, one can say that part of your being is moving
in time (Ya Mawjud) and part in eternity (Ya Qayyum) When you are
experiencing resurrection. One is registered in the psyche and
that quality of your being goes through a lot of change.
Eventually, the ultimate point is beyond dualities and that is
when one is in Samadhi. That state is of pure
intelligence, not qualities, pure intelligence, beyond time and
space.
So all this is coming through when you do your practice.  See if
you can experience yourself incarnating as you exhale Ya Mawjud
and resurrecting as you inhale Ya Qayyum.

Lesson #31:  Working with the Chakras

	"We are endowed with such great powers! Yet normally, we only use a small fraction of our inborn capacities." "The body is a wonderful vehicle in which to foster realization, so long as one develops its potentialities." Lama Geshe Gyatsu Here lies the key to perhaps, the most important and vital knowledge that has ever been explored and practiced in the spiritual traditions of humanity. From time immemorial, the key techniques ensuring mastery in the field of spirituality have been kept secret, and are now, to a large extent, available in published works. Besides, we are living at a time when we can network this know-how with the latest findings of science. We are still at the exploratory stage.
	Perhaps one of the ways of understanding what is meant by transform the body so that it may become an optimal instrument to attain illumination is that each plexus of the autonomic system (the physical counterparts of what the Yogis call the chakras) is connected with a particular endocrine gland. By concentrating intentionally, intensely and methodically on a particular chakra, one will spark the secretion of the corresponding hormones in the body. In turn, each specific hormone turns the other endocrine glands on or off. These highly specialized esoteric, magical chemical glands of the body have specific effects upon body functions, mind patterns, and particularly upon the realm of emotional attunement. Endocrinology is one of the least explored areas of physiology, or rather psycho-physiology. Our know-how on the subject is complicate in the extreme by the mutually reciprocal interferences of the effect of each hormone upon each other. However, the purely experiential research of Yogis on the effect of concentrating upon certain chakras in the course of meditation gives us some invaluable clues which may then be researched further with modern scientific techniques. Your feedback is most valuable. There is some reason to believe that the effect varies to some extent with the individual, and with the degree of proficiency of the adept in the practice of meditation.
	An invaluable guideline stemming from Tibetan buddhist practices is: do not look upon a chakra from your usual vantage point as though it were the object of your attention, rather, identify with it by turning your consciousness within the body, more specifically, inside that complex labyrinth of internal nervous pathways studded by junctions (the chakras). This is how the network of the nervous system appears when viewed from inside.
	The metaphysics behind all of this, which can now be confirmed by some modern theories in physics, is that space can be inverted. Physicists speak of tunneling, linking areas of space in ways that do not fit into classical theories about modes of communication in a space hypothesized as being three-dimensional. This is probably one of the ways of understanding the meaning of the buddhist term "sunyata," the void. Perhaps it may be helpful to imagine that within these tunnels, space is less densely packed.

	The central channel, the spinal chord, will appear like a tube, sometimes called a lift-shait, bamboo, or chimney within which you can displace yourself at will. It is helpful if you can envision yourself as a spotlight of intense light so that, as you move and zoom your light upon the area from within, it lights up. As you explore the internal pathways from inside, you will notice that at each junction (chakra), there are innumerable ramifications whose numbers have been catalogued by Yogis. The sanskrit word chakra means a wheel, the spokes are these ramifications. You could engage inside these; beware not to get lost but to return to the main channel. You can confirm that the heart chakra (anahata) seems to be home quarters where you come to rest most comfortably. Dwell within it for some time. You will feel a great psychic power, a strong, life-giving, magnanimous emotion. Now transfer your attention to the solar plexus. Can you feel the difference in the energy? The energy seems introverted in comparison with the extroverted energy of the heart chakra. For the moment, you are simply making a trial run. You will need to explore and study each chakra in depth to ascertain its effect on your attunement. (We will go into this in subsequent lessons.) Before you do this, you need to shift your model of yourself further. 
	A more advanced paradigm would consist in considering oneself as a force-field, rather than a substantial body studded with junctions and tunneled with worm-holes. This energy field is intricately landscaped. Instead of thinking of pathways, one thinks in terms of streamers of energy specifically contrasting with the energy of the areas they are penetrating. To make this a little more understandable, imagine a current of high intensity streaming through a field of low intensity but much wattage. Similarly, the areas called chakras are now considered as vortices within the energy field, typified by the nature and frequency of their energy in contrast with their environment. The method advocated by the Tibetans to help turn within consists in imagining that while inhaling, as one draws energy into a particular vortex, this energy is reversed from positive energy to negative. Negative energy! 
	What a challenge for the modern physicist! In fact, it is a paradigm reverted to in some equations of the new physics. The Tibetans call it resorbing the four winds into the void in the center of the body and practice It mainly in the solar plexus. The four winds represent four directions in which energy glows in the course of breathing: during inhaling, a) from the zenith downwards, b) from the bottom of the spine upwards, c) from the right towards the center, d) from the heart to the center. Following this, one exhales and extends energy: l) upwards, 2) downwards 3) to the right and 4) to the left. I feel more comfortable representing the energy during exhalation as flowing outward from the heart chakra. It is preferable of you explore this, and let me know your feedback. This practice (above) can be applied to each chakra, since the core of each chakra is looked upon as a vacuum at the center of a vortex of energy in the energy field of the body. From this vacuum emerges new energy into the universe (such as we conceive of it), precisely like the white holes we hear about in the views of astro-physicists into the last frontiers of science. In fact, the whole spinal chord and all of its ramifications are considered as a complex network of streamers of negative energy (in the nature of "sunyata") contrasting with the rest of the energy field of the body.
	In the light of this information, dwell in the heart chakra; experience it as a particular brand of energy, Its powerful magnetism emerging out of an impersonal, internal, and cosmic power source. It is outgoing, therefore, giving, but also all-encompassing. The Sufis look upon this energy as a fragment of the heart of God endowed with unlimited magnanimity, unconditional love for all beings, whether likable or not, reprehensible or not, even criminal. The appropriate wazifa is Ya Rahman. The Hindus compare the awakened and enlivened heart with an oyster which accommodates a grit of sand and transforms it into a pearl, smoothing its edges.
	Now compare the way you feel in the heart chakra with what you feel as you transfer your attention and sense of identity to the solar plexus. Dwell within it for some time. It is extremely sensitive, like a vulnerable sensor open to influences accruing from nearby and far away. You will notice wounds (resentment, feelings or rejection, even dejection, misunderstandings, feelings of underestimation, overstress, (scars from earlier wounds hailing from your childhood). As you practice expanding your consciousness, you will pick up distress signals from beings - humans, animals, even plants - suffering agony on the planet and even beyond, at cosmic reaches. You will feel immense compassion.
	The Sufis look upon the solar plexus (Qalb) as a fragment of the heart of God. This heart is bleeding because of the cruelty of beings who abuse the divine gift of free will, a token of God's generosity. The wazifa is Ya Rahim . By now it must be obvious that the heart chakra and the solar plexus form together, the two poles of the same reality, just like joy and pain. Hence the tandem Wazifas: Ya Rahman-Ya Rahim (mercy and compassion). Let us once more explore the nature of the energy field at that junction. Here you really do feel very intensely the negativity of the energy, a suction effect. One imagines a black hole, drawing you into a whole different dimension of reality. Now you are experiencing the vairagya (the withdrawal from life, detachment, imperturbability of the Sannyasin). In this state, you will find great peace - in fact, a peace beyond what one could have ever imagined. It is not indolence; it is a peace out of which a new dispensation of activity emerges.  You will be touching upon the new blossoming of your personality before it has jelled into idiosyncracies. Now you understand what is meant by inverted space:  everything is everywhere.
	If you bear in mind that you exist at several levels, then you need to consider the aspects of what you have been exploring in the realm of light. Shifting your consciousness to the plane of light, the heart will appear as a miniature sun. You are that miniature sun within the sun. Since the sun does not have a boundary, you bathe within the sun. One aspect of all of this is solar. Envision yourself now as a solar being, radiant, effulgent. You will now be identifying with the entire aura but if you apply the rule of keeping your consciousness turned within, you will look upon the aura as an extension of the heart chakra. That is, the heart chakra is really the radiant center of the aura. Identify yourself with it; you are a golden light breaking up into arrays of various hues as you extend beyond the center. Of course, each chakra has its own brand of radiation contributing to that vast intermeshing of rainbows that is the likeness of the aura.
	But for the moment, center in the heart chakra. From this reference point, the lower chakras seem more reddish. The solar plexus seems more incandescent than radiant, rather orange, like smoldering embers. The higher chakras seem more bluish, reaching into a colorless light crowning the entire aura. If you concentrate insistently upon this whole pattern of effulgence, you will feel as though you exist in a world of light. The physical world is just a crystallization of that level of reality with which you are now identifying. If you now shift your identity into the solar plexus, you will feel as though you are plunging into an incandescent gas sucking you into a black hole. Steady yourself, counter the impending dissolution. You will now discover that deep area which is still you and where a lot of psychological waste is being incinerated. The Tibetans describe it as a burning fireball. It burns more brightly by dint of your concentration upon it. They sometimes describe it as a candle that drips if burning overmuch. The sensation of dripping evidences one's sensitivity to the emission of hormones from the pancreas. These in turn are transmitted lower down to the adrenal glands.
	It would involve us in intricate references to physiology to describe these physiological and psychological effects upon us. Suffice it to say that the esoteric chemistry of the body reacts
at this point very markedly to our moods. Despair acts adversely upon our ability to transform the physical environment, in the form of food, into the particular pattern of our body cells. Conversely, one can counter this disfunction by joy: laugh therapy. Out of the raging fire incinerating our impurities, arises the burning flame of love in the heart, another example of the need to work with both chakras in conjunction.

Lesson #32: Signposts Toward Awakening

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