Subtle capacity, named Lataif in the Sufi tradition, are what is actually present in the experience of a human being as the personality recedes.
This is easy enough to verify for ourselves. The qualities of joy/curiosity, strength/boldness, steadfastness/confidence, stillness/silence, and compassion/ openness, are unmistakeable to the trained inner eye.
The qualities do not seem to be anything extraordinary, but they can distinguished from regular personal traits in key ways, which I will say more about.
It isn’t correct to talk about ‘developing’ the Lataif given that they are inherent, indestructible forms of presence, and we don’t seem to be able to cause them to arise. However, it seems we may be able to practice in such a way that the Lataif can flow.
And it is very much worth the attempt to do so. The Lataif our our best friends, in life and on an inner path.
Making the Lataif explicit – the Diamond Approach
In most spiritual paths, the subtle qualities are implicit. In the Diamond Approach, the Lataif are made explicit and taught early on because of their support for the central practice, Inquiry, and because of the view that they are portals that open the inner doors to deeper aspects of our nature (qualities of Essence).
Unique to the Diamond Approach is the view that the Lataif are connected with specific personality issues. The Lataif can flow freely as we resolve these issues. It is a developmental view on the Lataif.
“Each one of the Lataif has a sector of the personality connected to it that acts as a substitute for it and has the memory of the situations that led to its burial. All of these phenomena must be understood, precisely and exactly, for the centers to be permanently active.
Each of the subtle forms of the consciousness is then understood, experienced, and embodied. The effects of the Lataif on the person’s consciousness are understood and integrated. This has a permanent influence on the personality; the personality is in fact transformed by accommodating the impact of the Lataif on its structure and consciousness.
Beyond that, each of the Lataif functions, so to speak, as a door or entry into a whole universe, a whole dimension of Essence. Each is an entry into a realm of the being that has in it many essential aspects” – Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment, page 145.
Whatever our spiritual tradition or practice, the teaching of the Lataif offers an embarkation point for exploring our relationship with capacities that provide unique support for life and inner (psychological or spiritual developmental) work.
In this post I want to describe each of the Lataif from the Diamond Approach perspective, and I offer my thoughts on how the wisdom of the Enneagram might help us to open to the presence of the Lataif.
The Lataif and Essential qualities
When I first learned about the Lataif, as an Enneagram student with an untrained eye when it came to subtle states, I became desperate to understand the relationship between the 5 Lataif and the 9 Essential qualities. So are they connected and if so, how?
If you are unfamiliar with the construct of Essential qualities, here is a description from the book by A.H. Almaas, Spacecrusier Inquiry (page 9): “[Essential qualities are] perennial flavors of human experience [which] manifest in various forms as an intelligent response to the changing conditions of the Human Soul. Each essential aspect has a distinct experiential reality and function, while all share the basic ground of Essence: presence, self-aware luminosity, and openness”.
The Lataif are more diluted forms of Essence. They are the beginning experience of Essence in some of its basic aspects, the first subtle and fine manifestation of Essence.
“A Latifa is like the vapor of the oil, which, in turn, is the Essential substance” – Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment, page 143.
Each of the 9 Essential qualities (there are many more in the Diamond Approach) are deep aspects to realize, and usually require significant developmental work. The Lataif arise more readily for most of us.
A couple of the Lataif seem to remind us of the types – strength and Type 8, and joy and Type 7 being good examples. We could make a case that Type 8s have a clearer pathway than other types to the presence of pure strength.
However in actuality, anecdotally many students find they access strength more easily than most of the other Lataif; there is just less in the way of this quality, when it comes to prevailing conditioning and common worldviews.
As we see, given that Type 8s tend to be identified with a distortion on strength, it might be more challenging for them to experience the presence of strength in an unpatterned way. More on this below.
The subtlety of the Lataif
Consciousness can appear either ordinary or subtle. Put another way, we can identify with either ordinary or subtle consciousness.
Ordinary consciousness is what most of us experience as our regular condition. There is reoccurring thought and lines of thinking, reactions, desires for pleasure, suffering. Ordinary consciousness is like the cratered surface of the moon.
Subtle consciousness is spacious, free, delicate and refined. Prior to any spiritual work, it appears in rare blips between ordinary consciousness, which pervades.
The Lataif are subtle by nature, and so we need a little bit of subtle sense perception in order to recognize them.
From the perspective of the Diamond Approach, the Lataif do exist at the ordinary or gross (or personality) level, but in a distorted form. This perspective doesn’t discount the distortions. It sees them as opportunities to make contact with the quality they compensate for. We can see this as a vertical dimension to the Lataif.
It is interesting to contemplate why, if ordinary consciousness is so limited and difficult, more of us don’t develop subtle capacity. Why do we allow ourselves to stay so involved in gross consciousness?
An unconscious relationship with the three instincts have much to do with that. These deep drives and the way they impress our thinking, feeling and action tend to usurp subtle experience.
The practice of Inquiry can help us to penetrate ordinary consciousness and open us to subtler dimensions. So can many other forms of spiritual practice.
The Five Lataif
The Diamond Approach teaching identifies a sacred impulse at the heart of each Latifa (singular for Lataif), whose presence we can use to detect the presence of the Latifa itself. These are identified directly below the headings.
Each Latifa is associated with a primary distortion or obstacle. They are primary because they tend to show up for most people.
The presence of joy or curiosity
Scared impulse: “I wish!”
The presence of joy or curiosity is important in any inner path. A curious heart is what activates the spiritual search.
This joy and curiosity is different from ordinary joy and curiosity in several ways, not least, it is causeless. The presence of joy can arise even amidst a painful experience.
The presence of joy or curiosity is what helps us to take delight in our inner work. Our inquiries have the qualities of spontaneity, playfulness and adventure when this quality of presence is in abundance. We feel “oh, isn’t that interesting?” when we discover something new about ourselves, even if that thing is difficult to see.
The presence of joy and curiosity gifts us a deep enjoyment of the process, and an unconcern about the end result. There is goalessness, which creates more ease in our inner work.
It is true for each of the Latifa that we can realize them in increasingly profound ways. When we realize this Latifa in the deepest way, we forget our tendency to pursue what brings us happiness externally, and function from the understanding that it is being close to reality that brings us true happiness.
Primary obstacle
When it comes to the presence of joy and curiosity, the Superego or Inner Critic is the primary obstacle. Our Superegos are full of ideas about what we should like, do and be, what is and is not an appropriate emotion or expression, and what we should or shouldn’t know. It is not difficult to see how this strangles the delicate joy in our hearts, our curious wish to know.
And so learning to discriminate our Superegos, and defend against their attacks, is key to unveiling the presence of joy and curiosity.
The Enneagram and this Latifa
Many Enneagram students will naturally connect the presence of curiosity with Type 5 and the presence of joy with Type 7. These types do seem to embody the personality versions of these qualities.
Consider how Types 5 and 7, because of their idealised self-images, tend to distort the qualities of curiosity and joy, or over-emphasize them to the exclusion of other qualities of presence. These distortions are universal, to one degree or another.
In 5s, who tend to over-focus on wisdom and knowing, curiosity loses its lightness of being. In 7s, we see an exclusively external orientation to freedom and pleasure which overlooks the more subtle joy of inner discovery.
Because of the understanding that our Superegos are most in the way of the presence of joy and curiosity, we can consider the Enneagram types that tend to be the most identified with their Superegos.
I think primarily of Types 1 and 6, but even 2 and 4 to an extent. Each of these types tends to have a powerful Inner Critic which can starve a spirit of adventure. And so experiencing the presence of joy and curiosity for them goes hand in hand with Superego work. The next quality helps with that.
The presence of strength or boldness
Scared impulse: “I can!”
As curiosity gets lit in us, it begins to lead us outside of our circles of comfort.
How do we face that unknown? That is what the capacity of strength or boldness is all about.
The presence of strength or boldness is expansive and alive. We’re assertive and courageous when this quality pervades consciousness, without being forceful or angry. Our expression and actions have ‘oomph’.
True strength is what gives us a sense that we can engage in our inner work, and it helps us to make clear discriminations, including discriminating when the Superego is around attacking us.
Primary distortion: anger and aggression
The ordinary versions of strength and boldness are anger and aggression. Getting angry is the only way that many of us know to mimic that natural aliveness and courage. It is our habitual way of finding the strength to separate.
When not acted out (which tends to keep us stuck), anger and aggression lead us back to the source of our true strength.
“Both the hiding and charging occlude true strength and are intertwined with it”, Zarina Maiwandi, Diamond Approach Teacher.
We tend to be on a continuum when it comes to false strength – identified with being strong or identified with lacking strength. Both are tendencies to explore in order to liberate this Latifa.
Sometimes, when we explore the feeling of being weak, we might find that the Superego is around, attacking us. It appropriates our strength and boldness. Defending against Superego attacks takes strength and helps strength to flow.
Also baked into our ordinary experience of strength are distortions of the Survival (or Self-preservation) Instinct. The distorted Survival Instinct can have us react with disproportionate anger and aggression to things that don’t truly threaten our survival. Such events are opportunities to connect with our life force in its more pure form.
This Latifa and the Enneagram
It is natural as an Enneagram student to think of Type 8s when contemplating the presence of strength and boldness. But the presence of strength and boldness is subtle, and doesn’t necessarily look overtly bold. The strength we associate with 8s is false strength, which has forcefulness and control.
On the continuum between identifying with strength and identifying with lacking it, it is true that 8s will tend to identify (9s will tend to identify with lacking it, and 1s a combination of both). Because of their core self-image of being strong and powerful, most 8s aren’t inhibited from feeling and expressing anger, although I think it is incorrectly stated that 8s are generally angry people (they don’t need to be, as they are freer to express their anger).
Something important about the presence of strength and boldness is that it has the effect of separating, including from others. Consider the effect of anger for a moment. Anger isn’t a merging sort of experience! This makes me contemplate the types who are, for one reason or another, most resistant to separating – 9s, 6s, even 3s (from the perspective of separating from the family’s/culture’s ideals on value).
These types may have to be patient when learning to open up this Latifa.
Any type whose distortion of the Survival (self-preservation) drive means that they go passive in the face of threat should explore the occurrence of passivity as a pathway to connecting with their inherent strength and boldness.
The presence of steadfastness or confidence
Sacred impulse: “I will!”
The presence of steadfastness and confidence, which is connected to the Essential Aspect of Will, has many subtleties which make it different from its personality equivalents of determination, discipline, tenacity.
Will means something very specific in the perspective of the Diamond Approach. It is a matter of aligning with the natural flow of reality.
At the deepest realizations of Will, we function from the perspective of there being no separate ‘doer’. Upon realization of the perspective of Holy Will or Holy Freedom, we perceive that the functioning of reality moves in a particular direction with a particular intelligence and our functioning and actions are inseparable from that.
The presence of steadfastness and confidence is the beginnings of that realization.
“Activating [this quality] accesses the soul’s inner determination and solid steadfastness, which gives her the capacity to persevere and continue, rather than getting discouraged or losing heart”, Spacecruiser Inquiry, page 257.
Without the presence of steadfastness and confidence, our instinctual agenda will overrule our spiritual aspirations. The presence of steadfastness and confidence also give us an inner receptivity, a willingness to explore what arises.
The presence of steadfastness and confidence allows us to engage fully whilst letting go. We apply ourselves fully without pushing the water.
Primary obstacle – the iron will structure
From the perspective of ordinary, personality will, we make decisions, and our decisions cause what occurs. Consider for a moment how obvious it is to think in terms of cause and effect.
Particularly wilful individuals exhibit a sort of iron will – a hard, tense, defensive, insensitive, suspicious, externally directed structure, which acts to separate us from our inner experience.
This iron will penetrates our thinking (doubting others, planning what we will do), emotions (possessiveness, anger and hatefulness) and our actions (taking more than we need). We stop recognizing the humanity of others when iron will is in full swing.
Underneath that way of functioning is the view that reality won’t happen for us unless we continually effort and strive to make sure we get what we want.
This facsimile of true will protects us from an internal sense of helplessness (a true feeling we had from being a child).
This Latifa and the Enneagram
What patterning might our Enneagram type give to the flow of pure steadfastness and confidence?
The realization of this Latifa necessitates work for all the types. We all operate out of a lack of Basic Trust that life will happen for us.
As with personality strength, we tend to be on a continuum between identifying with having will and lacking it. It is possible to make generalizations about which types tend to identify more with having a strong will (2s, 3s, some 6s, 7s and 8s) or lacking will (9s, 4s and 5s).
For me, the iron will structure most evokes types 2 and 6.
2s are sensitive to the loss of the perspective of Holy Will, or unified Will. The Holy Ideas are the Enneagram’s mapping of the enlightened perspectives on reality. For each type, there is an enlightened perspective (the idea), along with a sensitivity to its loss and a specific reaction to that loss.
As 2s dig beyond surface reactivity, they may discover a sense of a separate self who can have its own way, which experiences the loss of holding as castration. The conviction of the separate self – that things can go the way we want them – makes the sense of loss of holding an enormous blow, deflating and humiliating. A wilful personality develops from a need to defend against that difficult feeling.
6s see the lack of a sense of holding from a cynical perspective, which makes us feel that nobody is going to be there for us out of selfless and caring goodness. This creates a fearful insecurity, and extreme wilfulness seems to be a common compensation.
Both of these types can bring the contemplation of the impact of their reactions to the loss of the Holy Ideas (called specific difficulties) into their explorations of this Latifa. Working through some of the false will of the personality can support the emergence of steadfastness and confidence, bringing great stability.
The presence of stillness or silence
Sacred impulse: “I see!”
The presence of stillness and silence is not merely the absence of worry and agitation. We can be aware of thoughts of worry, but experience freedom from perturbation at the same time. In other words, disturbing thoughts can be on the periphery, not unsettling an inner cloak of peace.
The presence of stillness and silence feels smooth, silky and blissful to some, even beautiful. It is as though our atoms have come to a standstill, there is no internal movement, just contented peacefulness that is pleasurable.
Many spiritual practices exist that support the arising of this presence. Meditation, for example.
From the perspective of the Diamond Approach, the only way for this presence to be fully liberated is to see what structures, positions, and fears we cling to that feed our inner chatter. (This Latifa is connected with the Essential Space, a mind free from self-images and object relations.) As the insubstantiality of our positions etc. reveals itself, we can settle into that stillness and silence.
The presence of stillness and silence are in turn what helps us to quiet the agitation and sit in our truth, unaffected by the day-to-day tensions of life.
Two primary obstacles: doubt and agitation
Among the beliefs ideas and attitudes, self-images and worldviews that prevent the presence of stillness, doubt is identified as the most central and the most important inner attitude to work with. Doubting our experience, doubting ourselves, doubting our perceptions.
(In the Diamond Approach, the phenomenon of a universal block is called a Diamond Issue.)
Consider how it affects you when something new and subtle emerges, and you apply a doubting attitude to it. It crushes anything subtle instantly. Subtle arisings are tentative, at least at the beginning. They are vulnerable to doubt.
Doubt is a dark emotion, and a destructive attitude. It has a suspicious and dismissive quality. That is how we can distinguish it from it from open, curious questioning that is useful.
Agitation is identified as the primary obstacle to the presence of silence, and it is characteristic of the ordinary egoic self. Consciousness has a jerking, angular, prickly quality, a choppy water quality. There are thoughts, conflicts, disturbing memories, anger and anxiety and they are in the foreground. I am sure anyone reading this instantly recognizes the condition. We feel it as turmoil, suffering, restlessness.
“If it is not the stillness of presence, it is the agitation of consciousness” – A.H. Almaas.
This Latifa and the Enneagram
As I contemplate the primary obstacles to the presence of stillness and silence from the perspective of the Enneagram, my mind goes to 6s.
6s naturally doubt others, because of the worldview described above, but their fearful insecurity also causes them to doubt themselves. Multi-directional doubt stops many a 6 from making progress on a spiritual journey.
When I think of other types especially susceptible to doubting their inner worlds, I think of 9s for some reason. But really, this can be a universal tendency. And the state of inner agitation is certainly universal.
The presence of compassion or openness
Sacred impulse: “I am!”
Existing in the realm of ordinary consciousness is difficult. When there is a sense of self to protect, the daily hurts and misattunements can feel endless.
The presence of compassion and openness is the presence of an exquisite sensitivity, a freshness and delicacy, an innocence that seems to emerge from the centre of the chest. It is responsive to our hurts.
Each type of emotional hurt has its own accompanying sense. Some feel like a rip in a fabric, a gash, a lashing, a raw bruise, an ache, burning, sizzling, searing, a soreness, tightness, contraction. Tenderness.
The presence of compassion and openness arises alongside our hurt. It soothes the pain from right in the middle of it.
Unlike ordinary compassion, which is actually a movement to feel better, this is what allows us to increasingly tolerate our hurts.
In our inner work, the presence of compassion and openness are what help us to be with our feelings of vulnerability, deep wounding and hurt, rather than distracting ourselves, going numb, or getting addicted, etc.
Primary obstacle: attitude to hurt
The main thing in the way for most of us with this Latifa is our attitude, our orientation to our hurts.
Our attitudes develop due to our specific histories, and how it was met by our parents or caregivers when we presented our emotional pain and vulnerability.
This Latifa and the Enneagram
The blocks to the presence of compassion and openness are universal. All egos pursue pleasure and avoid pain.
That said, any Enneagram student will think of 2s when they consider the presence of compassion. For 2s, having a compassionate loving nature is a core self-image. And 2s can be naturally gifted empaths.
But as with 8s and their self-image of strength, being identified with being compassionate tends to act as an additional impediment to the presence of the pure quality. 2s tend not not to be so aware of their inner hurt and helplessness.
7s have an orientation to freedom which tends to prevent the presence of it (freedom being a different facet on the presence of openness and compassion). They tend not to perceive the value in showing up to emotional hurts.
Average 6s may notice a reflexive attitude to hurts that has them act them out reactively, which closes down the opportunity to know this presence.
8s tend to be very defended around vulnerable emotions and so showing up to emotional hurt is challenging.
3s tend to be aware of their sensitivity but will take some convincing to stay their hurts and vulnerability. It is threatening to their identification with doing.
4s can get identified with their emotional hurt, and believe they are touching their pain when they are in fact a step removed. They need to question whether they are making contact with their pain truly.
Summary
The Lataif offer a valuable frame for exploring the subtle qualities of presence that emerge as we liberate from the personality.
Studying these capacities, including how they arise in our experience, and getting to know our blocks to their arising, is valuable for a spiritual path and for life. In a sense, practicing them is the definition of realization.
As with the Superego, our patterning of these subtle qualities is unique to each individual. Much depends on our specific developmental histories and conditioning.
But the Enneagram may be used wisely to help shine a light on obstacles to the presence of the Lataif. We find that each Lataif is either ego alien, ego syntonic or neutral.
As ever, the Enneagram needs to be held lightly in the exploration.