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THE DIAMOND APPROACH

by A. H. Almaas

The Diamond Approach is a contemporary teaching that developed within the context of

awareness of both ancient spiritual teachings and modern depth psychological theories; hence

the perspective of this teaching recognizes the inherent synthesis between the spiritual and the

psychological domains of experience. The spiritual and the psychological can be separated only

in theory, for in experience they are two dimensions of the same human consciousness.

Recognizing this truth makes it possible to approach the path to inner realization informed with

modern psychological knowledge, and thus allows the process of understanding one’s

psychological experience to open one’s consciousness to the deeper truths of our spiritual

nature.

This teaching approaches the path by taking into consideration, amongst other things, the

structure of reality, both inner and outer. It views reality to be fundamentally the eternal truth of

spirit that manifests itself in various dimensions, from the deepest dimension of absolute

emptiness to the physical realm. The appearance of this manifestation is what is conventionally

known as reality, including the physical universe and all beings with their minds and psyches.

The inner truth of this reality is true nature itself, pure spirit, which is the ultimate and real nature

of both the universe and all beings.

View of Spirit

The Diamond Approach views true nature to be both unmanifest and manifest. The unmanifest

is totally nondifferentiated and without qualities, a mysterious darkness and emptiness in which

consciousness is annihilated as it approaches. Yet this nonmanifest absolute truth holds in

virtuality all potential. By manifesting it creates the world with all its forms and transformations,

which becomes the appearance of reality; but it also manifests its own inherent perfections and

characteristics, which become the inner truth of reality. It is significant and central to the

understanding and the methods of the Diamond Approach that manifest true nature possesses

a structure, a structure that gives our experience its fundamental building blocks and capacities

of perception and action. In other words, as the nonmanifest absolute manifests it differentiates

into dimensions and qualities, so what is virtual and potential becomes actual and

experienceable. Spiritual realization is most fundamentally the recognition and embodiment of

these dimensions and qualities of true nature, as differentiations of the eternal spirit.

True nature manifests its fundamental characteristics in five basic dimensions, all infinite,

boundless and coemergent with each other. First is the dimension of absolute emptiness, which

is responsible for the arising of space in both inner and outer perception. Second is the

dimension of pure nonconceptual awareness, the clear light responsible for our capacity for

perception. Third is the dimension of pure presence, where being and the knowing of being are

the same thing, responsible for our capacity for discriminating knowing. Fourth is the dimension

of pure universal love, where presence is sweet and appreciative, which is responsible for the

arising of felt qualities and affects. Fifth is the dimension of the logos, which is the dynamic

dimension underlying all change, movement and transformation, responsible for our activities

and functionality.

These dimensions form an ontological hierarchy, in the sense that they become more

differentiated and knowable and less subtle as they  move from absolute emptiness outward.

They are, however, not a temporal hierarchy and are fundamentally inseparable, for all

dimensions of true nature are coemergent, giving manifest true nature a structure. Each one of