Akenu's Initiation

 Oh boy, where to begin... First, I am a bit frustrated with the traditional definition of the Air element as being hot and moist. For me is colder and definitely not moist, but light and moving, more windy than anything else. Today I did some extra reading on the Air element, and interestingly, it is associated with Prana, as the breath of life. So from that perspective, Pranayama and Chi Kung work with the Air element. Today I've also tried the Posism for the Air element based on Lasenic's work, and I have to say it works for me; the inside of the room immediately felt as if a light breeze was passing through.

 Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. The afterimage of the Air tattva was yellow both during the morning and evening trataka. However, only during the evening trataka was the image spinning. What is interesting is that the afterimage's color matches the color of Earth's tattva. Maybe the water tattva should be the opposite of the Fire tattva; definitely gotta try to color match it before the new week begins.

 This was the first day of working with the Air element (Vayu). I have to say the weather today was pretty cold, and I missed the warm embrace of the Fire element. On the other hand, the windy weather was perfect for the accumulation of lightness in the body. One weird experience during today's commute makes me think that the Air element has something to do with intuition, but I am not going to describe the event for privacy reasons. It also felt that the time was sluggish today; it felt unnecessarily long to get through the day. Another weird thing has happened during the evening trataka. The normally blue circle representing the Air tattva suddenly seemed purple for the gaze. The follow-up afterimage was yellow with jagged edges (sort of like flower petals), was spinning fast, and slowly getting smaller. I have no idea how this happened, but it was interesting nonetheless. After the final release and banishment of the element, I realized my body suddenly felt heavy. I guess the A...

 The final day of the Fire element is behind me. Today I have used the symbol of Agni for trataka multiple times during the day, and yet again, only the final trataka has shown the symbol as orange. And once again, it seemed that my body thermoregulates better when the Fire element is within. Heat seems natural, and cold just brushes off my skin. Let's hope that working with the Air element will be as illuminating. For the next week, the tattva of Air (Vayu):

Today it once again seemed that holding the fire element within makes my thermoregulation better than usual.  Other than that, today I broke the habit of doing only the exercises related to the project. I had to mow the lawn and couldn't help but pass the time by chanting the Kalachakra mantra.

 It seems the Fire element has become casual to me. I feel normal with the accumulated element. However, once I release the element, or even banish it with the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual, it seems I get hotter; it looks like my thermoregulation works better with Agni than without. And, as always, the tattva seemed to glow orange during the evening trataka session, but not during the morning one.

 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.

 Today, during meditation, I had a vision of two similar symbols. One of them looks pretty much like the Ingwaz rune. Ingwaz rune seems to be related to inner development. Not entirely sure what the other symbol is from, but it seems familiar.

Yup, it's me 😂