THE
LATIFAS
By Jose Reyes
The Latifas
are also called the subtle points, which imply something very small and quite
insignificant. They are actually the points of union between the second body
and the soul. For us ordinary people, is very hard to visualize that it is
possible to make such a contact as substantial as the experience we have when
we work at other morning exercises that involve attention with sensation
(filling), or even the six points exercise. The answer lies in numbers. There is a very especial energy which we can call the energy of possibilities that
accumulates every time we sit together with a common aim.
Time and time again we have witness
that as a group our possibilities are much grater than as individuals. “Whenever
two or three gather in my name I shall be amongst them”. (Jesus)
The Latifas
are like very small batteries that can receive minimal charges every time we do
the exercise. Little by little begin to feel their effect in our daily life. As
I said in another article, we begin to feel that our emotions become more
stable and substantial. When we begin to make the connection in the mornings,
at first as the name implies it is very subtle, but the sensation becomes
stronger with practice. We begin to feel protected by an invisible shield of
strong feelings that we can only pay back with strong feeling of thankfulness.
Each Latifa
by itself represent a Sacred Impulse that we can hardly recognize as such, and
we begin to see where we are lacking. We may find as it is usually the case,
that we lack the power to actualize all of them. Then we feel our lack of Wish,
Hope, Faith, Acceptance and Love. Usually there is one in particular that we
come to terms with and realize that there lays the biggest obstacle in our
personal life as well as our Work as individuals.
It is striking how Gurdjieff talks
about the condition of the Sacred Impulses in All and Everything. He said that
for us Humans the condition of these Sacred Impulses have deteriorated so much
that we have developed our own way to exercise them in our lives. So that we
also hope, believe and love. But how we exercise these impulses ah, it is
exactly in this that all the peculiarity of these three being-properties lies,
as he put it.
"'These meditations of mine made it categorically clear to me, that
all the genuine functions proper to man, being as they are, proper to all the
three-centered beings of our Great Universe had already degenerated in their
remote ancestors into other functions, namely, into functions included among
the properties of the organ Kundabuffer which were
very similar to the genuine sacred beingfunctions of
Faith, Love, and Hope.
"'And this degeneration occurred in all probability in consequence
of the fact that when the organ Kundabuffer had been
destroyed in these ancestors, and they had also acquired in themselves factors
for the genuine sacred being-impulses then, as the taste of many of the
properties of the organ Kundabuffer still remained in
them, these properties of the organ Kundabuffer which
resembled these three sacred impulses became gradually mixed with the latter,
with the result that there were crystallized in their psyche the factors for
the impulses Faith, Love, and Hope, which although similar to the genuine, were
nevertheless somehow or other quite distinct.
"'The contemporary three-centered beings here do at times believe,
love, and hope with their Reason as well as with their feelings; but how they
believe, how they love, and how they hope-ah, it is exactly in this that all
the peculiarity of these three being-properties lies”
Then he goes on to describe each one
of the sacred impulses and how we interpret and manifest each one of them as
follows:
FAITH
"'They also believe, but this sacred impulse in them does not
function independently, as it does in general in all the three-centered beings
existing on the various other planets of our Great Universe, upon which beings
with the same possibilities breed; but it arises dependent upon some or other
factors, which have been formed in their common presences, owing as always to
the same consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer-as
for instance, the particular properties arising in them which they call
"vanity," "self-love," "pride,"
"self-conceit," and so forth.
"`In consequence of this, the three-brained beings here are for the
most part subject just to the perceptions and fixations in their presences of
all sorts of "Sinkrpoosarams" or, as it is
expressed here, they "believe-any-old-tale."
"'It is perfectly easy to convince beings of this planet of anything
you like, provided only during their perceptions of these
"fictions," there is evoked in them and there proceeds, either
consciously from without, or automatically by itself, the functioning of one or
another corresponding consequence of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer crystallized in them from among those that form
what is called the "subjectivity" of the given being, as for instance:
"self-love," "vanity," "pride," "swagger,'
"imagination," "bragging," "arrogance," and so
on.
"'From the influence of such actions upon their degenerated Reason
and on the degenerated factors in their localizations, which factors actualize
their being-sensations, not only is there crystallized a false conviction
concerning the mentioned fictions, but thereafter in all sincerity and faith,
they will even vehemently prove to those around them, that it is just so and
can in no way be otherwise.
LOVE
"'In an equally abnormal form were data molded in them for evoking
the sacred impulse of love.
"'In the presences of the beings of contemporary times, there also
arises and is present in them as much as you please of that strange impulse
which they call love; but this love of theirs is firstly also the result of
certain crystallized consequences of the properties of the same Kundabuffer; and secondly this impulse of theirs arises
and manifests itself in the process of every one of them entirely
subjectively; so subjectively and so differently that if ten of them were asked
to explain how they sensed this inner impulse of theirs, then all ten of
them-if, of course, they for once replied sincerely, and frankly confessed
their genuine sensations and not those they had read about somewhere or had
obtained from somebody else-all ten would reply differently and describe ten
different sensations.
"'One would explain this sensation in the sexual sense; another in
the sense of pity; a third in the sense of desire for submission; a fourth, in
a common craze for outer things, and so on and so forth; but not one of the ten
could describe even remotely, the sensation of genuine Love.
"'And none of them would, because in none of the ordinary
beings-men here has there ever been for a long time, any sensation of the
sacred being-impulse of genuine Love. And without this "taste" they
cannot even vaguely describe that most beatific sacred being-impulse in the
presence of every three-centered being of the whole Universe, which, in
accordance with the divine foresight of Great Nature, forms those data in us,
from the result of the experiencing of which we can blissfully rest from the
meritorious labors actualized by us for the purpose of self-perfection.
"'Here, in these times, if one of those three-brained beings
"loves" somebody or other, then he loves him either because the
latter always encourages and undeservingly flatters him; or because his nose is
much like the nose of that female or male, with whom thanks to the cosmic law
of "polarity" or "type" a relation has been established
which has not yet been broken; or finally, he loves him only because the
latter's uncle is in a big way of business and may one day give him a boost,
and so on and so forth.
"'But never do beings-men here love with genuine, impartial and non-egoistic
love.
"'Thanks to this kind of love in the contemporary beings here,
their hereditary predispositions to the crystallizations of the consequences of
the properties of the organ Kundabuffer are
crystallized at the present time without hindrance, and finally become fixed
in their nature as a lawful part of them.
HOPE
"And as regards the third sacred being-impulse, namely,
"essence-hope, its plight in the presences of the three-centered beings
here is even worse than with the first two.
`Such a being-impulse has not only finally adapted itself in them to the
whole of their presences in a distorted form, but this maleficent strange
"hope" newly formed in them, which has taken the place of the
being-impulse of Sacred Hope, is now already the principal reason why factors
can no longer be acquired in them for the functioning of the genuine
being-impulse of Faith, Love, and Hope.
"'In consequence of this newly-formed-abnormal hope of theirs, they
always hope in something; and thereby all those possibilities are constantly
being paralyzed in them, which arise in them either intentionally from without
or accidentally by themselves, which possibilities could perhaps still destroy
in their presences their hereditary predispositions to the crystallizations the
properties of the organ Kundabuffer.
"Before continuing to tell you more about the activities of the
Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash
for the welfare of your favorites, I must, I think, elucidate to you, a little
more in detail, that inner impulse which is called there by your favorites
Hope, and concerning which the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash constated that the case
is worse than with the other two.
"And the personal observations and investigations I later specially
made regarding this said strange impulse present in them, clearly showed me
that in truth the factors for engendering this abnormal impulse in their
presences are most maleficent for them themselves.
"Thanks to this abnormal hope of theirs a very singular and most
strange disease, with a property of evolving, arose and exists among them there
even until now-a disease called there `tomorrow.'
Gurdjieff now refers I belive,
to those people in the Work specifically. It seems to be so when he said: those
who have worked on themselves and have seen that we posses some very
undesirable consequences for the deliverance from which we must make certain
efforts, and which efforts moreover we even know just how to make, but owing to
this maleficent disease `tomorrow' we never succeed in making these required
efforts.
"This strange disease `tomorrow' brought with it terrifying
consequences, and particularly for those unfortunate three-brained beings there
who chance to learn and to become categorically convinced with the whole of
their presence that they possess some very undesirable consequences for the
deliverance from which they must make certain efforts, and which efforts
moreover they even know just how to make, but owing to this maleficent disease
`tomorrow' they never succeed in making these required efforts.
"And this is just the maleficent part of all that great terrifying
evil, which, owing to various causes great and small, is concentrated in the
process of the ordinary beingexistence of these
pitiable three-brained beings; and by putting off from `tomorrow' till
`tomorrow,' those unfortunate beings there who do by chance learn all about
what I have mentioned are also deprived of the possibility of ever attaining
anything real.
"This strange and for your favorites maleficent disease of
`tomorrow' has already become a hindrance for the beings of contemporary times,
not only because they have been, totally deprived of all possibilities of
removing from their presences the crystallized consequences of the properties
of the organ Kundabuffer, but it had also become a
hindrance to most of them in honestly discharging at least those
being-obligations of theirs which have become quite indispensable in the
already established conditions of ordinary being-existence.
"Thanks to the disease `tomorrow,' the three-brained beings there,
particularly the contemporary ones, almost always put off till `later'
everything that needs to be done at the moment, being convinced that `later'
they will do 'better and more.
"Owing to the said maleficent disease `tomorrow' most of those
unfortunate beings there who accidentally or owing to a conscious influence
from without, become aware through their Reason in them of their complete
nullity and begin to sense it with, all their separate spiritualized parts,
and who also chance to learn which and in what way, being-efforts must be made
in order to become such as it is proper for three-brained beings to be, also,
by putting off from `tomorrow' till `tomorrow,' almost all arrive at the point
that on one sorrowful day for themselves, there arise in them and begin to be
manifest those forerunners of old age called `feebleness' and `infirmity,'
which are the inevitable lot of all cosmic formations great and small toward
the end of their completed existence.
"Here I must without fail tell you also about that strange
'phenomenon which I constated there during my observations
and studies of the almost entirely degenerated presences of those favorites of
yours; namely, I definitely constated that in many
of them, toward the end of their planetary existence, most of the consequences
of the properties of that same organ which had become crystallized in their
common presences, begin to atrophy of their own accord and some of them even
entirely disappear, in consequence of which these beings begin to see and sense
reality a little better.
"In such cases a strong desire appears in the common presences of
such favorites of yours, to work upon themselves, to work as they say, for the
'salvation-of-their-soul.'
"But needless to say, nothing can result from such, desires of
theirs just because it is already too late for them, the time given them for
this purpose by Great Nature -having already passed; and although they see and
feel the necessity of actualizing the required being-efforts, yet for the
fulfillment of such desires of theirs, they have now only ineffectual yearnings
and the 'lawful infirmities-of-old-age.'
I have chosen the following to
close, because if we observe we can easily see in which of our brains our
center of gravity lays.
‘Faith,’ ‘Love,’ and ‘Hope’
Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease.