Practice Assignments for God is Breath Class 8 Beloved Ones of God, We pray for the strength and love to continue our practice in an authentic way so that we may become established in divine remembrance throughout all aspects of our lives. May each one's breath be in communion with the Spirit of Guidance. Below are the practices for the coming month. There are a few changes from our present set that we will go over in class. Be sure to read through the instructions for the daily meditation as it has a few new elements in it. I would like for us to look deeply into our state of remembrance, to see where we need to bring concentration and prayer, and to draw renewed encouragement from the Source of all. Remember to remember, and to bring loving attention to God's presence in the Breath. Love and Blessings, Wali Ali Daily Practice Assignments: 1. Begin with recitation of the Sufi Invocation three times followed by inner reflection in which you connect with the meaning of this prayer. Then clearly establish your own intention and authentic prayer. 2. Do 33 vocal repetitions of the threesome: Ya Wahhab, Ya Razzaq, Ya Fattah. This brings a quickening in our lives to flow with these divine qualities and to open to the continuous movement of success and accomplishment, generous blessings and wise initiative in all our concentrations. (This practice, while recommended, should now be considered optional.) 3. Recite 33 times the pair of Names: Ya Barr, Allahu Akbar. Ya Barr is a prayer invoking the quality of God's perfect love, which is unconditional, all-inclusive, and in harmony with inner and outer conditions. Reciting Ya Barr allows us to prepare the container of the heart to accept all the divine qualities with equanimity. Allahu Akbar reminds us that God is greater than we can ever imagine, the ground of all-possibility. We are invited to experience peace as power, as the underpinning of the container of the heart. 4. Follow that with a 20 to 30 minute daily meditation: Allow yourself to breathe naturally. Notice the rhythm of this breath and consciously maintain this rhythm. Gradually allow the breath to become longer and more refined. Leave space for the small natural pause at the top and bottom of the breath and bring your awareness into that kamal point.
Place your attention on the magnetism (prana) that is carried by the breath. You are drawing from the all-pervading life in space. Center your awareness in the heart (middle of the chest) and consciously bring this livingness into the heart as you inhale, and radiate it as you exhale. Your whole physical body becomes charged with life. Feel this as a palpable energetic presence that continually fills your atmosphere with life-magnetism and power. Recognize this energy as a living embodiment of love and consciously embrace it as such. Enhance the awareness of this loving magnetism by beginning to silently intone "Ya Barr, Allahu Akbar." Bring this phrase into harmony with the rhythm that has been established in your breath. Stay attentive to the breath's regular swing--long, refined, rhythmical--and through the breath begin to seek loving connection with the divine perfections and to shape the container of your heart with the unconditional love of al-barr and the peaceful power of Allahu Akbar. Begin with the qualities that naturally arise and that you find most beautiful. Then reach out in prayer and attract in your breath those qualities that you most need in your life. Continue in this mode for a while. Then feel your heart connecting and merging with one of the illuminated souls. Breathe bringing your heart and your vision into empathetic oneness the illuminated soul that you are drawn towards. You naturally begin to experience life through those eyes, ears, condition of heart, and perspective on the world. At the same time, be alive to the lover's longing for completion in the Beloved. Let remembrance of the perfect One naturally fill your breath, and constantly flow with the joy of your life in Allah. 5. Kasab Practice: Begin by fully exhaling through the right nostril slowly repeating in thought the phrase "Allah Shafee, Allah Kafee" in rhythm with the breath. Immediately, fully inhale through the left nostril with the same rhythm and thought as above. Then, retain the breath while repeating "Allah Shafee, Allah Kafee, Allah Shafee, Allah Kafee" in the same rhythm as before (takes twice as long). Then exhale left nostril in the same rhythm and speed as the inhalation was. Follow this immediately by inhaling in the right nostril in the same manner. Again, retain the breath taking exactly twice as long as the time of the inhalation. You have completed one cycle of the practice. Continue until you complete five cycles. At the conclusion of the practice, take a few minutes to be fully aware of your breath in both nostrils. Throughout the practice we are connecting in our breath and in our prayer with God's all sufficient power of healing and purification.
6. From the Centering Exercises at the end of "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" Do the full Shaghal, which is item "C" below, daily. Practices "A" and "B" are now optional, to be done if you feel the call to do so. (The period of time to take for this practice should be approximately five to ten minutes depending on your own inner rhythm and capacity and how long you sit in meditation after completing the full cycle of the practice.) C. Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands, a space between your eyes becomes all-inclusive. (REQUIRED PRACTICE) Breath instruction: Before moving to the retention of the breath, take the time to bring your breath into a refined and rhythmical state. As you inhale turn your eye muscles up and bring your attention to your third eye center. Naturally release as you exhale. After a few minutes, draw a long breath in through the right nostril while closing all the openings in your head (ears with thumbs, eyelids with pointer fingers, nose with middle fingers, and lips held firmly together with the bottom two fingers.) After retaining the breath as long as is comfortable, release the fingers over your sense organs very gradually and open your senses naturally into the external world; however, you should leave your eyes closed until you have completed the 5 full Shaghal retentions. Between retentions, let your breath settle into its natural rhythm for a few breaths, before returning to the retention practice, which you should repeat up to five times. Be very attentive to the effect doing this practice has on your breath awareness after the five retentions are done. Also, remember Hazrat Inayat Khan's words about Shaghal that the great benefit from the practice is not so much in seeing the all-pervading infinite luminosity of boundless space or in hearing the all-pervading sound, but in feeling the effect of this experience in our soul. A. Touching eyeballs as a feather, lightness between them opens into heart and there permeates the cosmos. (Optional) Breath instruction: Begin by breathing in a refined and rhythmic manner with only a slight pause at the top of the breath. When you settle into the meditation and are starting to feel the subtle inner light evoked by the featherlike touch of your pointer fingers across your eyelids you connect that light with your heart through this subtle breath. As you continue the practice you will want to take several pauses where you retain the breath for as long as you are comfortable. Throughout the practice remember your awareness permeates the whole cosmos. B. Bathe in the center of sound, as in the continuous sound of a waterfall. Or, by putting fingers in ears, hear the sound of sounds. (Optional) Breath instruction: Begin by noticing the condition of your breath and bringing it into rhythm. As you are doing this you are releasing the hold you ordinarily have on your hearing that interprets what sounds mean. As you let go and bathe in all the incoming sounds you hear them as one continuous flowing sound. At this point you also become aware of the sound of your breath as a fundamental sound. When you place your thumbs
in your ears completely close off the space without putting undue pressure on your eardrums. Dissolve in the one sound and hear its huuuuuuu as the universal sound. As in the exercise above, you will want to periodically retain your breath after the inhalation so as to dissolve into the inner sound without hearing the air going in and out of your lungs. 7. The supplementary meditation practices using Ahad and Samad and Hu Allah with the Dove should now be considered as optional. For now we will take 5 to 10 minutes daily to breathe bringing our heart and our vision into empathetic oneness with an illuminated soul. You may stay with a single being or focus on a different illuminated soul on different days. As this living prayer of the heart becomes our breath, and we feel oneness with this illuminated being, we should turn our attention to the world around us near and far and be an instrument of healing and light. 8. Periodically check in with your breath throughout the day and mindfully notice its condition. For example, it could be Jalal, Jamal, Kamal, Urooj, Zaval, refined/coarse, powerful/dull, broad/narrow, etc. After checking in, consciously confirm the rhythm in your breath or, when needed, establish a rhythm in your breath. Stay with this awareness of the swing of your breath and allow it to gradually become longer and more refined. Then continue with your activities. Notice any way in which your emotions have been influenced by doing this. Here are a few additional things not mentioned above that I invite you to become aware of and to journal about. Some of the esoteric papers have invited us to see a connection between our breath and the answer to questions that life gives us in a particular moment. See what if anything you notice in this regard. Also note the presence of different qualities and the appearance of beings in the inner world. And, as suggested above, be particularly attentive to the breath after completing the Shaghal where you cover all the sense organs. 9. 20 Purification Breaths and Healing Prayer There are many different forms in which this practice is done. In this class we are placing our attention throughout on the avenues of purification mentioned in the prayer that follows the breaths. The Purification Breaths: Five times slowly breathe Ya Shafee (O Healer) in through the nose and Ya Kafiyy (O Remedy) out through the nose. Five times slowly breathe Ya Shafee in through the nose and Ya Kafiyy out through the mouth. Five times slowly breathe Ya Shafee in through the mouth and Ya Kafiyy out through the nose. Five times slowly breath Ya Shafee in through the mouth and Ya Kafiyy out through the mouth.
Follow with the healing prayer Nayaz: Beloved Lord, almighty God, through the rays of the Sun, through the waves of the air, through Thy all-pervading life in space, purify and revivify me, and I pray, heal my body, heart, and soul. To be done at any time: Journaling Continue to write in your journal at least once a week or more. In addition to noting the condition of your breath at different times, and what you learned from it, also give some attention in your journal to the different things that your breath connects with and what it draws from that connection.