Essence, dimensions and potentiality of our nature

The endeavor of this course is to reconnect with and have an experience of our true nature. The Diamond Logos Teachings, on which this course is based, take a step 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), is the main cause of our suffering. This approach holds that any therapy that does not retrieve our connection to Essence is incomplete. Most therapeutic work in fact stops short of recognition of the reality of Being and its qualities and most spiritual work tries to skip over and does not include a compassionate understanding of the personality. The Diamond Logos includes both and gives us an understanding of the Absolute, the Essential realm, and of the Ego, as well as showing us how they are inter-related.

A.H. Almaas and Faisal Muqaddam, two pioneers in psycho-spiritual work, used an ancient Sufi map of consciousness and 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 course
The heart of the work will be the subtle-energy system of the Sufis, called the "Lataif² and the way it has been married to in-depth western psychology. It functions as a pathway to understand our Essential nature and to retrieve lost Essential states, (such as Will, Strength, Love, Value, Compassion, Peace and Joy). The Lataif were transmitted directly to Faisal and Almaas in Iran from the highest teacher of the Sufi order, known as the Qutub.

In this course we will cover the 5 main Latifas or dimensions of Essence. Each section of the course 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 again with .

The Lataif are

	The #F8FFCB 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 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 defene.
	The Green Latifa known as the Essence of Compassion this Latifa gives us a profound understanding 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 i n different ways.

Other components of the course are

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 know as ³The Enneagram². 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 ³Theory of Holes². 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, (³holes²), and become the core of the personality structure. The deficiencies or loss of contact with Essence are compensated for by personality structures which try to imitate Essence which we refer to as ³filling the hole.² For example, someone with a deficiency in the Essential quality of Strength will often be the one efforting the most to portray an image of being strong. This method works to uncover the ³holes' or deficiencies through self-inquiry; to see and understand the defenses that protect a hole and to support a person to relax into the hole rather than effort to fill it through compensating behavior. 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 ³what is². 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.

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