Akenu's Initiation

 Day 3 was quite uneventful. On Day 4, while trying to visualize the elemental pentagrams as red, they appeared orange for some reason; I couldn't really control the color myself. During the day, while I was accumulating the fire element, it dawned on me. I could accumulate the fire element in the morning right after the Gnostic pentagram ritual and practice the release right before the evening ritual. It's not ok I came up with this mid-week, but from tomorrow on, I will do it this way. Other than that, the fire tattva still glows orange for me even while it is red, but only during the evening trataka, not during the morning gaze.

 The chippiness faded. Anyway, two interesting things happened today. Thing number one: Whenever I visualized the tattva, I got a feeling of warmth. Thing number 2: During my evening trataka session, as I gazed at the tattva, it started changing, morphing between red and orange colors. The following afterimage also seemed to be pulsating.

 The first day was kinda uneventful. Despite a slight boost in confidence, I also got a bit chippy. One interesting thing happened during my evening travel from the office. In the hot train with a broken AC, it seemed I handled the heat a bit better than the rest of the passengers. Still, today made it painfully obvious I haven't worked with elements in a while; hopefully, one week will be enough for each element.

 I've devised the following plan for the elemental working: Each week I will focus on a single element, in the following order: Fire Air Water Earth Akasha I've chosen this particular order as: Air naturally divides Fire and Water; Earth is the encompassing element of all three, and Akasha is the final element: the source of the other 4. My devised plan for the practice: Gnostic pentagram ritual with the elemental pentagram of the week (invocation in the morning, banishing during the evening) Trataka with the tattva of the element of the week Accumulation and release of the element Visualization of the tattva whenever the time permits So, on Monday I will start with the first element in the cycle: Fire. This is the tattva I will use for trataka and visualization:

This is a part tutorial and part rant about one of the early steps of Bardon's IIH, so brace yourself. Before we begin, let me give you two very simple methods of quieting your mind, so you can taste what it feels like to have no thoughts. "Taste" is definitely a pun for the first method. Easy method of quieting your mind Try this. Stick your tongue out and grab it between your index finger and thumb; now pull it out a little. Your mental chatter should disappear; isn't that cool? Well, if you are an inner-monologue type of person, that is. If your thought process is visual instead of auditory. This didn't do anything for you. The reason is that auditory thinkers do move their tongues a tiny bit while thinking. This method stiffens the tongue and makes these microscopic movements way harder. Don't worry, you will appreciate the second method a bit more. Visual method of quieting your mind Now relax and close your eyes. Imagine a completely empty white room. Th...

 While working on my trataka practice, I've decided to add a bit of a color to the after image. This is what the focus image looks like: And this is what the afterimage should look like: From my personal experience, the colors are a bit paler during the afterimage focus, and eg the red outline is not visible, at all.