Moodboard: Chapter 4 of the BAHR AL-HAYĀT ("OCEAN OF LIFE"). Section 5.

 

"The word of recollection (dhikr) of alakh. When one wishes to do this practice (karma), one assumes the posture sitting on both knees, with the left hand clenched in a fist, placing that fist on the right kneecap. One holds the right elbow over the fist. One also clenches the right hand into a fist, leaning on the chin, and tightening up the buttocks (surīn). One brings the navel toward the back. One brings the breath upward from beneath the navel, which is the house of fire. One brings it up to the brain in the form of alakh, and alakh is an expression for the pure (buḥt),5 until one is lost in that imagination, so that no information of the state remains. The testimony of this spiritual state is this."

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Image from the mysterious Bahr al-Hayāt translated as "The Ocean of Life" written in Persian by the 16th Centaury Sufi mystic Muhammad Ghawth.   The first illustrated manual of Hatha yoga, which has been studied over the many centuries and is said to be possibly an attempt at bridging Sufi mysticism to meditation and yoga, that are renown in Hinduism and Buddhism.