In the history of mysticism, few figures described the inner lights of contemplation with as much clarity and precision as Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (1145–1221), the great Sufi master from Khwarezm and founder of the Kubrawiyya order. His writings offer one of the earliest and most systematic phenomenologies of phosphenes: the spontaneous lights that appear behind closed eyes in deep meditation or altered states.

From sparks to suns

Kubrā observed that the seeker’s path begins with flashes like lightning, sudden sparks illuminating the inner darkness. From there, the lights take on the forms of stars scattered across the inner sky, then a softer and steadier radiance like the moon, followed by the blazing brilliance of the sun. Beyond even this lies a light with no comparison in the visible world, a transcendental illumination.

The colored stages of the soul

Kubrā went further, mapping a sequence of colored lights that correspond to different stages of spiritual development:

Green light (nūr akhḍar), the beginning, linked to the awakening of the heart
Blue light (nūr azraq), expansion and openness of the spirit
Red light (nūr aḥmar), the fire of divine love, burning away attachment
Yellow light (nūr aṣfar), the light of gnosis, inner knowing
White light (nūr abyaḍ), the synthesis of all colors, total illumination

The paradox of black light

Most remarkable is Kubrā’s description of black light (nūr aswad), a luminous darkness beyond all created colors. Here, the mystic passes beyond the domain of visions into the uncreated, encountering the divine essence itself. Black light in this sense is not the absence of vision but the fullness of the ineffable. Actually if you do phosphene meditations, you will see the black light and the white light merging and light happens in dark or dark happens in light. The both are.

A medieval taxonomy of phosphenes

When read today, Kubrā’s luminous taxonomy looks strikingly similar to what modern psychology and neuroscience describe as phosphene phenomena. The lightning flashes, stars, and geometric forms echo reports from sensory deprivation and psychedelic research. The color progressions recall Klüver’s form constants and other systematic attempts to classify inner imagery.

What Kubrā achieved was a kind of medieval phenomenology, a mapping of inner light as both spiritual practice and diagnostic tool. For the Kubrawiyya Sufis, these lights were not hallucinations to be dismissed but markers of the soul’s transformation.

Why this matters today

Bringing Kubrā into the conversation shows that the Yoga of Inner Light, as you are developing it, has deep historical roots across cultures. Long before modern science, mystics like Kubrā observed, recorded, and classified the very same lights that meditators and neuroscientists continue to study today.

The prisoner’s cinema, psychedelic visions, Tibetan darkness retreats, and Kubrawiyya fotisms all converge on the same universal truth: the human mind has always been a generator of inner light.

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References

Kubrā, Najm al-Dīn. Fawā’iḥ al-jamāl wa-fawātiḥ al-jalāl (The Breezes of Beauty and the Beginnings of Majesty), 12th century.
Corbin, H. (1964). L’homme de lumière dans le soufisme iranien. Paris: Berg International.
Elias, J. J. (1995). The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ʻAlā’ ad-dawla as-Simnānī. Albany: SUNY Press.