By making intimate contact with the truth of your everyday life, you can know the depths of who and what you are. You can learn to invite Being itself to provide you with profound guidance and understanding for your inner journey of self-discovery. You can come home to the still sweet simplicity of spirit while living in today’s complex world. - A.H.Almaas 1
This is the understanding of the Diamond Approach, a unique modern spiritual work school developed by A.H.Almaas in California.
And as Almaas explains further, “the Diamond Approach is a path of wisdom, an approach to the investigation of Reality and a method of working on oneself that leads to human maturity and liberation. It is a spiritual teaching, a method of connecting with our spiritual nature and bringing it into our life. The Diamond Approach represents a new paradigm in human/spiritual knowledge and understanding. It is not a synthesis of existing knowledge, but rather a new, more integrated understanding of the entire human psyche – ego, personality, soul – and the psyche’s relationship with its fundamental nature.” 2
The aim of the Diamond Approach is self-realisation in a gradual, systematic way that is always governed by our unique personal history, capabilities and needs. This involves a dynamic form of teaching which supports the unfoldment of the soul through the process of open-ended inquiry into our personal experience. This process naturally and gradually activates the unconscious psychological barriers to self-realisation that are unique to each of us.
Over time, as these barriers are made fully conscious, and become more and more transparent to us, we can start to contact and mobilise our deepest potential, or Essence. In time, Essence becomes the source of self-understanding and the autonomous guide for the soul's journey Home.
The Diamond Approach is unique in its understanding that our Essence is not just a uniform Presence, but has many distinct qualities or aspects, like the facets of a diamond. Some of these aspects are Joy, Love, Will, Compassion, Peace, Clarity, Intelligence, Strength, Personal Essence and Absolute Nature. It is also unique in its very precise understanding of the ego’s barriers to each aspect of Essence, and in its methods of working with these barriers to reveal the hidden Essence.
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In the Diamond Approach we work to rediscover and fully experience the preciousness of Essence - the 'honey' or 'elixir' of enlightenment, and also that part of ourselves which is most true, real and substantial. Precise knowledge of how this happens, step by step, aspect by aspect, is one of the unique contributions of this approach. 3
Rather than fight against the ego’s barriers to self realisation, the Diamond Approach invites us to understand them from a radical perspective, not merely as barriers but as doorways. They are both locks and keys. Hurt and the hostility that covers it are not simply blocks to genuine compassion; fully experienced, they allow us to access infinite love and compassion for ourselves and others. Anger is not just a shallow substitute for real strength; experienced and understood deeply, it opens into the expansion, capacity and vitality that is our birthright. 4 The fundamental method is a process of open inquiry into whatever arises in our experience in the moment, be it an emotion, a sensation, a thought, a belief or a memory. We inquire into the truth of our personal everyday experience, working with presence, sincerity, compassion and precise awareness, without judgement or goal.
This method of inquiry also includes meditation and awareness practices, supported by the Diamond Approach teachings, which provide a framework for the inquiry.
We inquire into our awareness at all levels of the self, including body, mind, emotions and spirit. Nothing in our experience of ourselves is left out, and ultimately every part of the personality comes to be included in the process so that it can be refined and purified by the action of Essence.
This inquiry into the Truth of our own experience is what guides us on our journey towards personal liberation.
The Diamond Approach shows us that our personality is actually a necessary stage of our spiritual development, and rather than being a barrier, holds the keys to our liberation. Thus all self exploration undertaken with openness, sincerity and a deep desire to seek truth, insight and meaning can be a part of our ongoing spiritual journey and path to self realisation.
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