An experiential Training for Seekers and Therapists

ESSENCE: Dimensions and Potentiality of our Nature

The endeavor of this experiential training is to reconnect with and have an experience of our true nature. The Diamond Logos Teachings, on which it is based, take a step further where most therapeutic approaches end. As well as working with emotional conflicts and personality issues it has a basic understanding that separation from our Being and its substantial manifestation, (known as Essence) the main cause of our suffering.

A.H. Almaas and Faisal Muqaddam, two pioneers in psycho-spiritual work, used an ancient Sufi map of consciousness combined with modern in-depth psychology to develop a system that opens this dimension they have called Essence. Essence is often understood as a bridge between the spiritual realm or Absolute and the personality or ego structure.

About this experiential training:

The heart of the work will be the subtle-energy system of the Sufis, called the “Lataif” and the way it has been married to in-depth western psychology. It functions as a pathway to understanding our Essential nature and towards retrieving lost Essential states (such as Will, Strength, Love, Value, Compassion, Peace and Joy).

In this experiential training we will cover the 5 main Latifas or dimensions of Essence. Each section will be devoted to working with one particular Latifa. Each Latifa is different and has its own colour, qualities and set of issues. The issues of each Latifa also provide a way to understand our loss of contact with Essence as well as a way to come in contact with it again.

The particular strength of the Osho Risk Essence concept is that it gives plenty of time to have a more bodily experience of each Latifa, and to interact on many levels from the exchange with the group and therapists.

Other components of the course are:

The course starts with creating a foundational understanding of the activity of the Superego (Inner Judge): its origin, its functions, its relation to Ego identity and self-image, its modalities of attack and manipulation as well as different ways to defend ourselves from those attacks.

The map of the personality known as “The Enneagram”. We will explore the different ennea-types, called fixations, their basic patterns of behavior and their relation with different qualities and potentiality of Being.

The “Theory of Holes”. This theory says we are born as Beings of Essence, but through lack of recognition, trauma and devaluation in our formative years we lose contact with our Essential nature. This disconnection is experienced as a sense of deficiency or lack, (“holes”), and becomes the core of the personality structure. When relaxation happens and the uncomfortable feeling of deficiency is tolerated with compassion and presence, Essence is contacted and the missing quality arises from our Being.

The foundations of this work are presence, openness and understanding: an honest exploration of our structure and the capacity to be with “what is”. It is not about personality adjustment or fixing ourselves but discovering what we already are and reclaiming through loving awareness what we have lost contact with.

Turiya, Avikal and Rafia have been teaching the Lataif system since 1998.

Sections:

Superego

The Superego runs our life through judgments, prejudices, standards, guilt and shame. By understanding how it functions, how it began, how it controls and limits our experience, we can learn how to defend against its attacks.

We then rediscover inner spaciousness and can allow transformation and creativity.

The White Latifa

known as the Will Essence, it has to do with a feeling of inner solidity, inner support and a sense of value. It is the relaxed confidence that comes when we are in contact with our Being. It is grounded, resourceful and committed.

The Red Latifa

known as the Strength Essence, it has to do with our capacity to be an individual; it brings the strength to separate from old structures that no longer serve our evolution and uniqueness. It is passionate vitality, enthusiasm and has the strength to go into the world with all its challenges.

The Black Latifa

known as the Peace Essence, this latifa is about our Love of the Truth and longing for Peace. It is a very deep dimension of looking in and realizing a state of inner mastery. Here we face our concepts and fears about death and confront the main layers of ego defence.

The Green Latifa

known as the Essence of Compassion, this Latifa gives us a profound understanding of and compassion for our ego structure. It is the compassion and understanding which allows us to go deeply into our wounds and heal them. It gives us the capacity to do the same with others.

The Yellow Latifa

known as the Latifa of Joy, this subtle dimension of our Being is like an inner sun shining and is about our innate capacity to live in Joy and Curiosity. It is a place where our old negative self-images and seriousness are dropped and our light-hearted innocence is regained.

This work uses self-inquiry as its principal methodology. Simply put, self-inquiry is our love of, curiosity about and commitment to knowing the Truth about ourselves. Self-inquiry is taught in detail and is applied and articulated in different ways.

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Many Spiritual Maps Join in the Diamond Work

Avikal: An Osho therapist’s meeting with Almaas & Faisal

“In 1991 I read my first A.H. Almaas book: “Essence”. For three days I found myself glued to a sofa completely taken by what I was reading. It was the first time that I had found somebody capable to articulate in such detail and vivid precision a bridge between therapy and meditation, the work on the personality structure and the awakening of Being. I was also blown away by the seamless merging that it offered of Sufi maps, Tibetan Buddhism, Freudian ego-psychology, the enneagram etc. It felt like Osho’s vision of a meeting between East and West was there, articulated in a methodology that I could apply in groups and individual sessions, and it had a beautiful name: The Diamond Work.

A few years and many books later, I started training with Faisal Muqaddam, and soon I became one of his system’s certified teachers. Faisal calls the Diamond Logos: “High-Tech Spirituality” and it certainly is so. You are provided with such precise tools and understanding that every aspect of everyday life can be experienced, seen, felt, understood and integrated with greater and greater easiness. And when I listen to Osho, I keep finding in his words all the elements that the Diamond Logos has, but in a much more poetic and visionary way: When Almaas talks of Superego, Osho talks of conscience and character. When Almaas talks of Diamond Body, Osho talks of guidance and inner voice. When Faisal talks of individual and integration of the ego identity, Osho talks of crystallizing the ego, individuality and uniqueness. The understanding of the Superego as the most basic obstacle to freedom/being oneself and of separation from Essence as the main cause of our suffering has been the guiding light of my personal inquiry in these years.”