Warm Greetings, Jamiat Am. I hope you are well. Here are some impressions from the three-day Easter Retreat, led by Pir Zia on zoom. About 300 people attended, perhaps half from Germany, as this was the annual retreat that’s been held there for many years. Each sentence was translated into German.
I added three additional days to the retreat, knowing that I would want time to work with all the practices, and had a guide for those days. Family things occupied me after 5 pm each day, so I was only partially on retreat. That was the best I could do.
So far Bawa seems to have introduced three approaches to alchemy that he uses. One is based on the planets of astrology–mercury, venus, moon, sun and so on–with their rich archetypal significance. Another is based on the times of the day–night, morning, noon and so on–and the way they influence our days and our lives. The third, which was the basis of this Retreat, is centered around the lataif, with their colors, elements and energy.
On the Retreat we worked with the lataif in the spiral pattern that Bawa has been emphasizing. Each of the seven lataif has a color, the four colors of the elements plus black, white and gray. At least five of the lataif have an elemental breath. The spiral represents, among other things, The Journey of the Soul.
The spiral circles in to the center and ends up at the Sirr and the color green. He calls that step Veriditas , “a primal livingness that expresses itself in the Earth’s greenery,” quoting from the flyer about the Retreat, with the word coming from Hildegard of Bingen. He says that green is the goal of Sufi alchemy, an extension of the western alchemy goal of: gold.
Bawa gave a half-hour summary of these teachings in the Nature Meditations talk of 4/25/21, titled Blue and Green, available on the Inayatiyya web site. The web site also has a comprehensive summary of alchemy topics in the description of the Suluk Alchemy Graduate Course, listed under “Programs,” so you can see how it fits together. “As Above, so Below” is a major theme, as a way of living in tune with the music of the spheres.
The Retreat had nine sessions, so he was able to spend an entire session on each of the lataif. Near the end he went through the entire process again in half an hour. He’s done this practice before, and you will be able to recognize it because he goes through the five elemental breaths twice, slightly out of order. It’s a great way to review the whole process, and end up at the Sirr.
I always thought that Pir Vilayat was interested in the alchemical process as a means of transformation, with the traditional goal of lead into gold representing something like ego into illumination. Pir Vilayat talked of three reasons for giving a wazifa: “for dealing with situations in life, for enfoldment, or for illumination and realization.” [From “List of Wazifas,” online in the Leaders Manual] The alchemical process could be useful in these three situations.
I’ve been wondering if Bawa’s goal could best be described as: Realization. He has a way of seeing things, of experiencing things, that he is trying to convey to us. The sayings of the Nature Meditations are effective for this. They express an attitude, a way of seeing, that comes through those images. This spiral pattern of working with the lataif represents a whole view of life he’s passing on to us. Excuse me for speculating on such things.
For me a high point of the Retreat came three days afterwards, in a followup talk with my retreat guide. We were talking about dealing with negative emotions, such as anger or resentment or disappointment. I said that a main practice for me was to be present to the emotion, with a kind of loving indifference and a curious independence, with an attitude of “allowing.” I’m guessing you’ve all done some version of that.
Well, she suggested that I allow the Divine Healing Presence to touch the feeling. I immediately realized that this was distinctly not what I was doing. A few minutes later she quoted a prayer, “Pour Thy Divine Healing Power through my breath, my thoughts, my glance, my words and my touch.” Those words, though they mean something slightly different, touched off the experience of allowing that flow, that touch, from the Source. That’s not the same as allowing the feeling. How come you never told me about this before, I asked. A week later I was looking at my notes and found that the day before the Retreat she had used the same words, and I had totally missed it.
This description may not mean much to you, but perhaps it can be a reminder of that experience of a new insight. Have you ever read some well known text, from Murshid or the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, say, and discovered an extra sentence that you’re sure was never there before? No only that, but it’s the most important sentence on the page. It’s like, how come no one ever told us that “there is no reality but God”? Well, maybe they did.
With love and blessings to you all,
Jami Klein
Washington, DC