In its new lab “Humility and Gratitude – Developing Sincere Love for The One” OstadElahi inPractice once again draws from the Fundamentals of the Process of Spiritual Perfection: A Practical Guide. The lab focuses on the panel “Humility and Gratitude” that appears in chapter 12 “The Exercise of Attention-Dialogue”. The core of the lab rests on this passage, in which Bahram Elahi describes the necessary conditions for sincere love for the One to emerge.

Bahram Elahi already referred to the exercise of attention-dialogue in La Voie de la Perfection as “one of the pillars of the process of spiritual perfection”. In the Practical Guide it is the subject of a special chapter that can be considered a reference for both theory and practice. This chapter presents numerous “recommendations for a good practice”, providing students of the “new medicine of the soul” with many guidelines resulting from years of research and in-depth experimentation. (…)

The goal of this lab is to provide help and support in this exploration. Projecting ourselves into these figures means that we should memorize and understand the faculties of the soul from a perspective of functional anatomy (definition, origin, role, relationship to the other faculties, etc.), but it also entails that we practice perceiving and concretely grasping them within ourselves, , in order to eventually master them and fulfill their potentials. (…)

Perfecting one’s humanity requires that we establish a precise diagnosis of our character weak points or flaws relating to ethical and divine matters so as to tame and control them. The reservoir of our character weak points is however located in a zone that seems at first to be out of range of our ordinary self-consciousness, namely, our unconscious psyche. How then can we still attempt to concretely make a diagnosis of our character weak points? (…)

One day, one saying, and the possibility to deeply reflect on its content and to build upon it in vivo, at the heart of our daily lives. This time, a selection of 40 excerpts from Words of Truth will take us as close as possible to an approach Ostad Elahi vividly embodied in the smallest details of his life. (…)

For those wishing to travel on the road to self-knowledge, it may at times seem more like a maze than a road. How is one to keep moving in the right direction and avoid getting lost? Meditating on principles of wisdom can help us find our way, but there can be no progress unless we put them into practice. How can we then go about combining action and meditation? (…)

“Are you prone to backbiting?” Our immediate response to this question would certainly leave room for no doubt: “Of course not!” Backbiting seems so obviously unethical that no one would think of themselves as a “backbiter”. Yet, there is no single path to backbiting. No matter how obvious or subtle they may be, experience has shown that we go down such paths much more often than we would like to admit. (…)

What is prayer? What purpose does it serve? What is its role in the process of spiritual perfection? Under what conditions can one best benefit from prayer? This lab aims at helping you better understand the goal, the effects, and the conditions of prayer, and make the practice of prayer a part of your daily life.

What would be the best approach to begin an ethical and spiritual practice? Focusing on one’s thoughts? On concepts? On actions? What method would be most effective? How can one avoid falling into an imaginary practice with only the illusion of progress? In this first open curriculum lab, it will be up to you to progressively define the content of your work by exploring the foundations of an ethical and spiritual practice that is truly adapted to the soul—that is, an in vivo practice.