The Lovers: Being & Becoming
The dance between being and becoming is much like the relationship between lovers—intimate, mysterious, and always in flux. Being is the quiet presence that holds us, the essence of who we are, unchanged by the world’s noise. Becoming is the movement, the reaching, the transformation that arises from engaging with life. These two lovers, though seemingly opposites are inseparable. Without being, becoming is frantic, directionless, and a wild chase for something that is always just out of reach. And without becoming, being is static, a comfortable but stagnant pool. The beauty of existence unfolds in the interplay of these forces—the stillness of our essence giving shape to the ever-unfolding flow of our lives.
Being is the nature, Essence, and substance of all physical objects, or mental objects, and all experienceable manifestations. It is the body, the feelings, the thoughts, the actions, the sounds, the sights, and the meanings. Being is everything.
A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery
There’s a moment in everyone’s life—probably several—when we’re forced to pause and ask: What am I becoming? It’s not a casual “How are you doing?” question. It’s deeper, like standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down at the life you’ve constructed, and realizing that maybe, just maybe, all that scaffolding isn’t holding you up the way you thought.
What is this process of becoming? It feels like trying to catch water in your hands—every time you think you’ve got it, it slips through your fingers. Becoming is more like shedding skin than putting on new armor. It’s less about gaining and more about releasing. Yet, in a world obsessed with more success, productivity, and visibility, how do we even begin to understand the subtle art of less?
I’ve often pondered the ancient Sufi teaching about polishing the heart—an image that evokes something both harsh and tender. The heart, they say, is like a mirror, and over time, it gets tarnished by the dust of life. We don’t become more by adding layers but by clearing away the debris. Becoming isn’t about acquiring anything; it’s about reclaiming what was always there—the mirror, pristine and whole, waiting to reflect the truth.
How does the potentiality inherent to the soul become actuality? How does potential for experience become experience? How does potential for forms of knowledge become actual knowledge, manifest and perceptible forms? What is responsible for the inner infinite riches of the soul becoming manifest? The soul must possess a property or properties that allow her to translate her hidden treasures from the obscurity of potential to the light of actuality.
A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home
A Question to Sit With
Here’s a question: When was the last time you thought about what you’re genuinely becoming rather than what you’re achieving?
In modern life, we’re bombarded with messages telling us we’re incomplete and need to be more intelligent, thinner, wealthier, and successful. There’s always a product or a program that promises to fix what’s broken. But what if nothing is broken? What if, like that mirror, the essence of who you are has never been damaged—just covered over by the grit and grime of everyday existence?
If this is the case, then becoming is less like building a skyscraper and more like peeling an onion. You’re not adding floors to your life; you’re stripping away layers. What are you becoming when you stop trying to become something?
A question expresses both the fertile openness of true nature and the love that characterizes the dynamic creative force of that nature. The question invites revelation because it’s love for knowledge engages Being’s love of revealing itself.
A. H. Almaas, The Void: Inner Spaciousness and Ego Structure
The Mind’s Trick: Form Over Essence
We live in a world of forms, and forms are alluring. The career, the relationship, the house, and the status. We cling to these forms because they give us a sense of identity and security. But here’s the kicker—forms are temporary. They change, they crumble, they fade. And if we’ve built our entire identity on them, it’s a bit like building a sandcastle and expecting it to last through the tide.
No form can be outside the oneness of Being. To perceive or conceive of a form we have to see that it is an inseparable part of the oneness, for no form can be outside the oneness of being.
A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home
Ancient spiritual teachings from Buddhism, Sufism, or the Diamond Approach® remind us that essence is what endures. Essence is the part of us that isn’t bound by the temporary conditions of life. But in a culture that worships productivity, it’s easy to mistake the form for the substance. We’ve been taught to measure ourselves by what we do rather than who we are.
Isn’t it curious how we often run from the very thing that could set us free? Why are we so afraid of what’s underneath all the layers of doing and achieving?
The Body Remembers
Here’s the thing about becoming—it’s not just a mental or emotional process; it’s physical. Becoming happens in the body as much as it happens in the mind. Your body remembers things your mind has long forgotten, and listening closely enough will guide you toward what’s true. Becoming asks you to embody your truth, not just intellectualize it.
Take the vagus nerve, that long, wandering highway that connects your brain to your gut. It’s not just the highway; it’s the signaler, the translator. The nerve lets you feel calm, grounded, and alive in your skin. The vagus is always quietly orchestrating this dialogue between mind and body, like a subtle symphony of being. If we listened more closely to our bodies, perhaps we’d recognize that becoming isn’t about racing forward but sinking deeper into the present.
Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going on inside ourselves.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
Quantum Becoming?
And then, there’s the question of time. Becoming feels linear, right? First, we’re one thing, and then we’re something else. But quantum physics—bless its mind-bending perspective—reminds us that time and space are far more fluid than we like to think. What if becoming is less like walking a path and more like unfolding from the inside out?
Like quantum particles that exist in a state of potential until observed, maybe we, too, hold within us infinite potential until we focus our attention, collapse the wave, and step into a particular version of ourselves. Every choice, every moment of awareness, collapses the field of infinite possibilities into the life we’re living. But that doesn’t mean we’re bound to that particular outcome forever. Every moment is another chance to become something else—maybe even to “unbecome” everything we thought we should be.
The difference between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time
The Gateway to Becoming
And here’s where curiosity comes in. If you’ve ever had that moment of “I wonder what would happen if I…”—you’ve tapped into the engine of becoming. Curiosity isn’t about finding answers; it’s about staying open to the unfolding. It’s that childlike wonder that says, “What if?” What if I stopped striving? What if I let go of that need to control everything? What if I allowed myself to become whatever life is pulling me toward?
Curiosity is always there, a certain attitude or movement that we’re capable of at any time. And curiosity opens the joy. Joy is curious. Joy is curiosity. As you love the truth, or as truth loves the activity you are engaged in, truth shines.
A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Five
Curiosity feels like rebellion in a world so focused on certainty and control. And maybe that’s precisely what we need. Less certainty, more wonder. Less control, more openness.
Are You Brave Enough to Stop?
Becoming isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s about slowing down, stepping back, and stopping and stopping the endless cycle of self-improvement and productivity long enough to notice what’s happening underneath all that doing and stopping long enough to feel the pulse of life, the quiet hum of essence that’s been there all along.
And in that stillness, perhaps the most radical realization emerges: Becoming isn’t something we do; it’s something we allow. Life is the force of becoming, and we are its vessels. We’re not sculpting ourselves out of clay; we’re more like trees growing into our full shape, our branches stretching toward the light without forcing the process.
Allowing is not an active doing but is simply desisting from reifying concepts. We cease looking at the world through concepts and stop indulging this discriminating mentality.
A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book One: Elements of the Real in Man
So, the next time you’re tempted to ask, “What am I supposed to do?” consider shifting the question: “What am I becoming?” The answer may surprise you. Or, more likely, it will remain a mystery. And isn’t that the point?
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