Ostad Elahi used to define his teachings as a new medicine of the soul: one that is adapted to the true nature of human beings and adheres to the law of causality governing both their spiritual and material lives. The spirituality he practiced was natural spirituality, and he considered the process of spiritual perfection to resemble an academic curriculum.

The excerpts presented here are drawn from a lecture given at the Sorbonne in March 2011, in which Prof. Bahram Elahi revisits various aspects of Ostad Elahi’s philosophy. Rephrasing them in a simple and direct manner, he relates these points to fundamental questions and examines them from a rational standpoint.

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It has become common knowledge since Freud‘s works that the human psyche is comprised of a conscious part and an unconscious part. While, by definition, the unconscious may not be directly investigated, the conscious part of the psyche can be explored and “worked on”. Bahram Elahi suggests that such “work” basically turns on the division that exists between the “surface conscious self” on the one hand, and the “deep conscious self” on the other.

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After completing his surgical training at the University of Montpellier in France, Prof. Elahi led a distinguished clinical and academic career as professor of pediatric surgery, serving as dean of several medical schools and publishing various medical textbooks. Parallel to his professional career, he has concurrently pursued the study of ethics and spirituality for the past forty years, following the path traced by his father, Ostad Elahi. This has resulted in the publication of several books, including Medicine of the Soul and The Path of Perfection.

Prof. Elahi regularly lectures in Europe and North America. In October 2010, his talk in Paris focused on two key concepts in Ostad Elahi’s thought: self-knowledge and Perfection. Self-knowledge refers to active, concrete, in vivo knowledge of the powers that constitute our being, a knowledge that becomes more refined through the practice of true ethics, based on correct divine principles. According to Prof. Elahi, everything else results from this, including the level of development reached by the “metabrain”, as well as the understanding and freedom that one can enjoy here and in the other world.

We thank Prof. Elahi for allowing the release of this previously unpublished video excerpt.

The idea of a self-transformative process leading to a better self is probably at the root of spirituality. It suggests the possibility of a higher form of happiness, inseparable from a state of moral perfection, an accomplished wisdom synonymous with true and perfect humanity.
This lecture presents a summary of Ostad Elahi’s thoughts on what he calls the process of spiritual perfection. A process that fulfills the purpose of every being, which is to return to its Origin and thus reach the state of Perfection; it is driven by precise laws and dependent on specific means, such as human beings’ voluntary efforts to shape their thought and develop divine virtues.

What is it in me that says “I”? What is the nature of that consciousness of my self? What is my spirit made of? How am I psychologically constructed? We can ask this question in so many different ways, replace one term by another, we will always return to the same enigma: what is it in me that produces the feeling of existing, but also rules my behaviour, my thoughts and my emotions? What is this thing, which we could call the self, that enables me to think, to decide, to feel; that keeps all my experiences and gives me the innermost feeling of being myself, of having my own identity?

This lecture explores The model of the self according to Bahram Elahi as compared to the models put forward by neurosciences or Freud’s psychoanalytic model.

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Rights and Duties: here are two concepts that seem to be excluded from our every day modern lives, at least the latter. With respect to rights, we instantly think of human rights. On duties there isn’t much said, almost nothing, the concept repels due to it’s constraining aspects, upsetting our sense of freedom; we would rather bring it up indirectly through notions such as deontology, civil duties, eco-responsibility or judicial responsibility.

The lecture on the duties of human beings deals with the notion of rights and duties through an existential perspective, as a return to the source of the rights itself. By creation, each human being or other, acquires the right to return to its origin, to the divine source, according to a path that Ostad Elahi calls path of perfection. However to obtain this right, human beings must accomplish a certain number of duties.