Black Latifa Retreat — Mandali, Italy
Essential Peace The Vastness That Includes Everything
A residential retreat with Emilio Mercuriali in the Diamond Logos lineage of Faisal Muqaddam.
There is a stillness that most people are afraid of. Not the absence of noise — the absence of the one who needs the noise. A spaciousness so complete that nothing is excluded: not the pain, not the joy, not the uncertainty, not the silence itself.
This is not withdrawal. This is what awareness is, when it stops pretending to be small.
The Work
The Black Latifa is the most mysterious of all the essential qualities — the quality of absolute peace. Not the peace of avoidance, not the calm of suppression, but the vast awareness that arises when a person stops contracting around their experience and allows everything to be exactly as it is.
When this quality is lost — and for most of us it was covered over by the relentless activity of a mind that cannot stop — the personality creates substitutes. False peace: numbness, withdrawal, detachment, spiritual bypassing, the appearance of equanimity that is actually a sophisticated form of not showing up.
In this retreat we work directly with that contraction. What drives the restlessness, what the mind is defending against when it refuses to stop, and what a person fears they will find in genuine stillness. The territory includes the fear of emptiness, the addiction to activity, the confusion between peace and passivity — not as problems to fix but as veils over something immeasurably vast.
When the contraction releases, something becomes available that was always here. Not blankness — the most alive silence you have ever encountered. The ground from which all other qualities arise and to which they return.
The Format
This is a residential retreat. When you step out of ordinary life for several days, something becomes available that isn't available otherwise. The usual supports fall away. What remains is closer to what is actually true.
Each day includes teaching and guided self-inquiry. The teaching is precise — it maps the territory of the Black Latifa, its obstructions, its movement. But this is not a seminar. The Logos — the teaching itself — carries a direct transmission. Something in the words, when received in the right conditions, does not merely inform. It activates.
Self-inquiry then works with what has been activated. The understanding that emerges is not added to what you already know. It moves through you differently.
Who This Is For
This retreat is for people who have done inner work and want to go deeper. Prior experience with meditation, inquiry, or psychological work is expected. You need to be willing to sit with what arises when the activity stops — with what has been hiding in the silence you have been avoiding.
This is not an introduction to the work.
About Emilio Mercuriali
Emilio Mercuriali has been teaching in the Diamond Logos lineage for over 25 years. His work integrates the direct investigation of essential nature with a precise psychological understanding of the structures that obscure it. He is an authorized teacher of the Diamond Logos teachings of Faisal Muqaddam, and teaches internationally in Italy, Japan, and online.
Emilio's teaching has been a bridge to a part of myself I hadn't known how to access. His work on the Diamond Logos has given me a clarity and a sense of groundedness that is hard to find in other spiritual practices. He is a truly compassionate and skilled teacher.
— Augusta
Practical Details
- Dates
- To be announced
- Location
- Mandali Retreat Centre, Italy
- Price
- Varies by accommodation — contact Mandali directly at [email protected]
- Included
- Full board. Single, twin, premium, shared rooms and hermitage available.
Apply — Three Questions
The retreat works because the group is the right group. Before acceptance there is a brief conversation.