Open-Secrets

Tag: diamond-approach

  • Quintessence – Essence of the Essence

    Merrill_hall_asilomarI just returned from a 10–day retreat with A.H. Almaas. The retreat was held at Asilomar near Monterey, California.

    The focus of the retreat was Quintessence which Almaas refers to as the Essence of the Essence. In his book, Brilliancy: The Essence of Intelligence, he refers to brilliancy as the essence of the essence.

    I asked Almaas about this and he replied that this was an example of the evolution of his teaching – The Diamond Approach to Self-Realization. When he became aware of brilliancy as an essential quality, he saw that it contained all the other essential qualities within it in a unique way. He started referring to brilliancy at times as the essence of the essence to reflect this capacity of brilliancy.

    Later, when he discovered the Quintessence, he started to refer to it as the essence of the essence. He no longer refers to brilliancy as the essence of the essence.

    So, brilliancy can be viewed, in part, as the essence of all essential qualities, but the quintessence is fundamentally the essence of the essence.

    Which probably raises the question for you – what is the quintessence?

    Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence
    Date: 15th century

    1 : the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies 2 : the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form

    More on that later.

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  • The Diamond Approach by Phrasr

    Diamond_approach

    These images represent the following sentence taken from the home page of www.ahalmaas.com –

    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.

    …and interpreted in images by phrasr. See the show here

    What do you think? I like it. I’m going to open The Soul’s Compass to a random page and do one from it – next post.

  • The End of Ambition

    Desire

    Yesterday, A.H. Almaas began his lecture with:

    We are all engaged in an interesting endeavor – to actualize something invisible in our lives, something not seen by the ordinary senses. This something transcends the biological imperatives of life. Our purpose transcends the simply biological.

    The lecture went on to explore the phenomena of sexual desire and its relevance to one’s spiritual search and the maturation of the soul. Instinctual desire is a topic addressed by most spiritual teachings. Most see it as an impulse or motivation to be suppressed or gotten rid of.

    Almaas looks at desire like any other phenomena – something to understand. His experience and teaching, the Diamond Approach, recognizes the value of understanding as a means of dissolving barriers and obstacles on the spiritual journey. This understanding is not an intellectual or theoretical process, but rather, a deep experiential experience.

    To understand instinctual desire so that primordial energy can be used in the service of the maturing soul, one must first free it from all of the social, mental, emotional, and personal baggage that distorts it. When the instictual drive is returned to its pure state, it can then be synthisized into soul in a way that supports her movement toward the mystery of her deeper nature.  

    Image from Deric Bownds’ Mindblog

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