I decided to move on to the so called Akhfa/Ikhfa, a Latifa I was neglecting a bit because it gave me literally nothing whenever I meditated on it.
According to different sources its colour is green and its attribute is connected to the feelings of compassion and hurt. It sits in the center of the chest and if I did my researches right, this one is directly connected to the “hidden knowledge of the universe”.
It was the first Latifa that made me use Dhikr for the first time because I couldn’t see any other options to kick this thing to life.
My visualization back then:
a huge red wall with a huge blue gate. The gate is closed, of course.
Finding a closed gate where compassion and hurt supposedly sits isn’t that surprising for me, in hindsight.
My second attempt with meditating on a Latifa while utilizing Dhikr was with the Khafi/Khafiya (“Inspiration”).
This one is supposed to look either black or green-ish and, depending on the tradition at hand, it sits either in the forehead or over the right chest. It is connected to the attributes Peace and Agitation and interestingly enough you’re supposed to smell things before they happen and the people around you (not in that disgusting public transportation way).
My experiences with Khafi, back then:
Didn’t realize the sensation of a connection being established from the right center of my chest to my forehead, at first. I DID realize when the connection started to feel as if someone has jabbed a firm and very tangible and large tube in between both spots underneath my skin. The sensation turned into nausea and a light headache the more often I recited the dhikr, I had to stop at approx. 7ish minutes. These meditations are so damn uncomfortable sometimes.
It wasn’t until later when I noticed, that this Latifa was activated almost on the spot at the two locations they’re supposed to be found. It didn’t feel like a success back then, but it reads a bit differently with a little time in between each session.
I found an amazing paper about breathing techniques and how your breathing should be different when you’re utilizing Dhikr (spoken remembrance) and Fikr (remembrance in thought), etc. It absolutely blew my mind and it is one of the best modern finds I ever came across, so far. The visualization techniques and the emphasis on organ-logical analogy are door openers for me (I will come to my own findings about organ-logical reactions, sometime) and it makes overall understanding so much easier.
I would love to share excerpts from it after I tested the techniques but I am afraid that quoting my source would come back to the (still very much alive) author and the order connected to it, and I don’t wish to make it overall weird for them if they happen to stumble over the authors work on here
My next take on Sirr was overall much better informed and accompanied by reciting Dhikr. The meditation went nicely compared to the last time and the reaction in the right side of my body and the white lights are pointing towards a successful response of the Latifa:
The right side of my body responded really well to it; I would describe it briefly as a warm and tingly sensation.
The longer version: it felt as if the right side of my body was filled with thousands and thousands of tiny white lights that swirled around in the dimensions beneath my skin and my body felt much more “real” and present than the left side. One half of my body stepped into existence, the other one got left behind.
It was also during my workings with the Lataif when I discovered by accident that fasting adds a lot to my meditation sessions (not only with the Lataif, but in general. By now I have added one fasting day per week)
My first very specific experience with this was during a session with Ana/Haqqiah. So far my head was vaguley responsive when working on this Latifa.
Leaving the territory of vagueness, stepping into the territory of organ-logical reactions:
While reciting Dhikr for roughly 7 minutes I’ve encountered a very peculiar stimulation on the right half of my brain (again, the right side of the body as encountered during the Sirr meditation).
If I had to pinpoint the anatomical areas I would describe it as a series of waves from the frontal lobe to the cerebral cortex all the way through the motor function area and back to the parietal lobe. The parts behind that area seemed to feel unaffected by the impulses.
This is the first time that a meditation hitted rather specific different spots inside of my head at the same time. My right (and healthy) eye teared up a bit, as well.
The right half of my brain feels affected. I can’t quite describe it, but if I had to: it feels as if a heavy object gets placed on an elastic surface that deepens beneath the object as it sinks deeper. Something sank deeper in there.
I feel as if a blue upright triangle is surrounding me (I don’t see it, I feel it with my forehead. Wow, that doesn’t make more sense only because its written now, does it?), the top of the structure is located just slightly above where the cortex would be. The structure feels firm.
My right eye sinks deeper into the socket of my head.
From a paper that discusses motif patterns in Sufism it is suggested that “the triangle is the
geometrical expression of two entities and their reconciling relationship.”
While “Hu” stands for the essence itself (“He”) , the absent one. When reciting this dhikr it is suggested that the dhikr dissolves itself because there is no duality anymore, only “oneness”, “It” simply becomes Itself.
A small collection of former meditations before I move on to my current practice
Sirr meditation:
Visuals: the heart is replaced with a flower made out of white marble. I don’t have arms. I don’t need arms. Everything is white and static but in a good way. The flower is heavy in my chest; I am heavy. I am made out of white marble. I am wrapped in a cloth made out of white marble. Everything is white and static and heavy. I feel myself splitting open on several parts of my head and my torso. Not forcefully but slowly.
Akhfa/Ikhfa meditations:
My chest is parting in the middle. A deep and unsightly cut is gaping like an unbridgeable abyss in flesh and bone. Flames are lazily moving out of the gap inside my chest, thin and translucent. It feels hot. My chest, my abdomen, my face, my scalp, everything feels unbearably hot.
A few weeks apart from each other a new attempt, much better as it seems:
a strong green buzz formed in my chest. This buzz trailed further up my throat and into my mouth; I had the impression as if someone would press their thumbs into both of my mandibular joints and reciting felt a bit harder like this.
I could see a figure in black garments sitting in front of me, it felt female to me.
Today I tried to utilize this approach in my Ruh meditation.
While breathing I imagined a simple lemniscate: following one curve while breathing in, following the other curve while breathing out, switching in between them whenever I would meet the middle of the figure with my breath.
Focusing was a little harder like this but I think I made it work:
the image of a large pendulum inside my body, below my chest. The pendulum consists of a clear material (like glass or polished quartz) and a golden chain. The pendulum stands still the entire time while I breathe along the lemniscate symbol. It seems to be the point of this meditation: breathing around the pendulum so it will not move in either direction.
An accidental find with this technique: if I imagine to breathe in with one nostril and breathe out with the other as suggested in the paper, while following the lemniscate breathing pattern…I get rid of headaches (even more severe ones like today) and stuffed sinuses. This is only physical imagination, no actual shutted nostrils while breathing (unlike with the Nadi Sodhana, which I always found really unpleasant).
Ana/Haqqiah meditation. I suppose that my Sahasrara meditation two days ago and my unlocking session with Qadim yesterday did something.
Here is the excerpt from yesterdays session:
While reciting “Hu” and breathing into the lemniscate pattern, the violet light returned into my head. It formed itself from a shapeless and weightless light into a solid violet plate. This plate shoved itself down from my scalp right into my brain and in front of my eyes. Quite a bit like one of these old Bundeswehr flashlights, the ones with the colour filter plates that one had to push up in front of the bulb. I opened my eyes and instead of my environment I could see a fountain, with the violet filter in front of me. My forehead felt numb, my eyes burned a little.
When I closed my eyes again the scenery changed into a different room; I wasn’t alone anymore. I could see the white outlines of three other persons sitting with me in a small circle, meditating with me. I couldn’t hold the vision.
My forehead is still numb and I can’t move my eyebrows.
Akhfa/Ikhfa meditation.
I actually fell asleep during that one. Nothing too unusual, but this time my upper body stayed upright, as if it was pulled up by an invisible string. In addition, there was also the sensation of something sturdy supporting my upper back from behind, like a wall. I snoozed for about four minutes before I woke up, still in position.
No wild visualizations during the accidental nap, only the vague vision about green cloth.
Khafi meditation, I am finding that something seems to “guide” my body posture while doing these meditations.
This time I have the impression that two hands are pulling my head down to my chest and towards the ground, in an effortless yet firm way. My head stays like this; it doesn’t hang around, it doesn’t tense up, it feels as if an invisible weight is holding my head in place. No struggle. Over time it feels as if my body is turned upside down, with a delicious gravitation towards the floor; as if I was grounding myself headfirst. The whole procedure indeed feels as if I was grounding myself from the top of my head.
With my forehead somewhat facing my chest I would think that the physical locations of this subtlety wish to connect to each other during this meditation. It is the second time that both locations are not only activated but also connected
Overall results while working with the Lataif points:
two energetic serpent-like “streams” did their very best to get all the way up inside of my body. Unfortunately they got tangled into another right in the mid section of my back and stayed like this for a while before subsiding. I could feel the colours of each stream; each of them had a mind of its own, like a separate living being.
Separation seems to be one of the main motifs, in this case.
A-ha!
From my unlocking with Thu’ban:
He mentioned the triangle quite some time after I discovered the section mentioned above.
Now I do wonder if my cannibalistic tendencies while dreaming comes from the inner urge to overcome the separation motif. Devouring, usurping, becoming one, etc.
I want flashy and corny and extra-ish findings, not this piece of lukewarm self realization.
Akhfa/Ikhfa meditation:
My heart hurts. Not emotionally. The pain then is replaced by the sensation of a green tree growing inside of my heart, the branches are puncturing the heart muscle and the tissue of my lungs and the shoulder blades, pushing their way all up into my brain and beyond.
From out of all the Lataif I have basically avoided one, so far.
The Qalb, ironically the heart of everything, so to speak. I have put the cart before the horse with ditching this one, while taking care of all the other points. I am pretty sure that one is supposed to work with the Qalb before paying attention to the other ones (at least from what I could gather and understand). It is supposedly experienced in the left side of the chest, with the colours yellow or red attributed to it. It seems to keep the true ego of ones nature hidden inside of it (there is also room for some sort of spiritual obedience inside of this organ, according to some sources).
The whole heart thing is a story of its own that doesn’t quite belong here. For now it must suffice that this point - from an energetic perspective- is nothing but an acquaintance, compared to all of the other ones. Nonetheless I decided to have a look at this Latifah, partly because I was curious and partly because I’ve wanted to get it done.
My first conscious experience was as disappointing and sobering as it could be.
It felt as if my heart did not move; maybe the top part of it did something, with a lot of interpretational goodwill. Other than that I’ve experienced it in the same manner as how I’ve left it: unmoved, unbothered, with the same ardour as a bag of frosted vegetables.
I’ve started to play around with different names of Allah while meditating on different lataif points. I have overall started to utilize the names of Allah in my other more tangible workings as well but this is by now highly experimental and in its early stages.
For my last Ruhi session I used Ya Sami’, as I’d like to polish all clairs (or “prophetic inner vision”) with it. As-Sami’ is the “All hearer” and I would therefore connect it to Clairaudience
I could see an old gramophone sitting inside my heart. It connected itself through thick metal pipes towards both of my ears; the gramophone remained silent but something started to pull at the winding handle The meditation faded out into tiny white lights inside my head.
Notes for further Ruhi sessions: Ya Sami (Clairaudience), Ya Shahid (outer world knowledge perceived by all five senses, so probably all clairs?), Ya Khabir (inner world knowledge, maybe combined with Ya Shahid would lead to some sort of omniscience perception), Ya Nur (enlightment? Claircognizance?) and Ya Basir (Clairvoyance).
Edit: Ya Muta’ali for transcendence, as well.
I had an oddly specific dream after working on this Lataif point. I was dreaming about my father and especially about his random fits of rage and anger. He would become a role model of why I would feel forever unsafe in the presence of a certain kind of people. I would “inherit” his rage and it would take me years to break out of this cycle.
In this dream I was consciously leaving him behind, telling him that I am refusing him and his ways and all of the other similar tempered men and their ways. I felt rather emotional after waking up, but also free.
Tried my hand on Ruhi again, this time with Ya Basir, to basically…see everything all at once? Not just the things that already exist but the things that don’t exist, things that are about to come into existence and things that are about to fall out of existence and things that were never meant to exist in the first place. I guess thats what you long for when you are a sucker for details.
The meditation showed me the opposite of a scrying mirror. I gazed onto the opaqueness of a white and smooth surface. And for some reason I could see, through the brightness. The images weren’t inside of the surface but on top of it. Light blue and dark grey shadows, forming into shapes.
Khafi/Khafiya meditation with the help of “Ya 'Adl”, the balancer of everything.
A pleasant and tingly and lightweight sensation around my entire upper head, the section just above the bridge of my nose. Its such a pleasantly strange feeling, as if that part of my head would receive a warm blanket, a warm bath or a gentle embrace. My forehead is so relaxed that I can’t move my eyebrows.
The visuals: a plain checkers board. Every playing stone gets eliminated from the board, slowly and without haste. Piece by piece. Until only two stones remain on the board, each belonging to its respective side.
Notes for further Khafiya sessions: Ya ‘Adl (complete balance), Ya Mubdi’ (creativity and the initial “spark”), Ya Khaliq (for creating, making, acting, using all possibilities), Ya Wali (to turn away from anger), Ya Fattah (to clear the way of any obstacles), Ya Zahir (to fully manifest), Ya Mu’akhkhir (to end what has been already started), Ya Muntaqim (against the cycle of revenge), Ya Mani’ (against acting out of anger), Ya Mutakabbir (to push constantly beyond any limitations), Ya Matin (for the strength to keep on going), Ya Halim (against anger) and Ya Salam (peace).
Shaking off some dust that has settled on my shoulders while I was in full research mode.
Notes for further Ana/Haqqiah sessions and I am not disappointed with what I came up with, considering the sparse informations about it:
Ya Warith (to die before you die, ego death), Ya Ba’ith (shaking off the slumber imposed on the heart), Ya Haqq (getting straight into the “heart of the night”, shadow work), Ya Mudhill (facing the lower self, shadow work), Ya Rafi (transcending and overcoming the lower self), Ya Mu’izz and Ya ‘Aliyy (severing attachments to reputation), Ya Mumit (fana, dissolving of the ego self), Ya Badi’ (turning away from the egos need to impose subjective truth onto others), Ya Latif (of course! Smoothing the edges of the ego), Ya Ra’uf (cutting ties with the perception of the ego-selfs “not enough”), Ya Shakur (overcoming the ego-self of the outside world), Ya Karim (penetrating the ego core), Ya Quddus (purifying the ego-self to let go of attachments that keeps one away from truly intimate union), Ya Tawwab (parting the ego-self from old wounds) and Ya Jami’ (purifying the Nafs).
Thats quite an amount of names to choose from, if I might say so.
