„This series of books, Diamond Heart, is a transcription of talks I have given to inner work groups in both California and Colorado, for several years, as part of the work of these groups. The purpose of the talks is to guide and orient individuals who are intensely engaged in doing the difficult work of essential realization.

The talks are organized in a manner that shows the various states and stages of realization in the order that occurs for the typical student, at least in our teaching method: the Diamond Approach. They begin with the states, knowledge, and questions most needed for starting the work on oneself, proceeding to stages of increasing depth and subtlety, and culminating in detailed understanding of the most mature states and conditions of realization.
Each talk elucidates a certain state of essence or being. The relevant psychological issues and barriers are discussed precisely and specifically, using modem psychological understanding in relation to the state of being, and in relation to one’s mind, life and process of inner unfoldment.

Hence, this series is not only a detailed and specific guidance for the student, but also an expression and manifestation of the unfoldment of the human essence as it reveals the mystery, wonder, exquisiteness, and richness of the real world, our true inheritance. Each talk is actually the expression of a certain aspect or dimension of being as it descends into the consciousness of the teacher in response to the present needs of the students. The teacher acts both as an embodiment of such reality and as a channel for the living knowledge that is part of this embodiment.
It is my wish that more of my fellow human beings participate in our real world, and taste the incredible beauty and integrity of being a human being, a full manifestation of the love of the Truth.“
A.H. Almaas

Hanging Loose from Diamond Heart Book II: The Freedom to Be

by A.H. Almaas

The process of freeing oneself can be seen from two complementary and interconnected points of view. The first looks at the process as self-realization, which is called self-actualization or essential development. The other point of view sees the process as liberation or freedom. Each perspective you emphasize depends on what you are aware of in yourself. There are two contenders for your attention: essence and personality, your true nature and your acquired identity. From the perspective of essence, self-realization means realizing or developing one’s essence. From the perspective of liberation, the process is seen as becoming free from the personality. In our work, these two developments go on simultaneously; they are actually one process. In the past, different systems have emphasized one or the other to the extent that at first glance they may appear contradictory. Sometimes conflicts arise because of the terminology. Those who are on the path to self-realization say, „Just realize yourself, develop your inner potential. What is this enlightenment business? There’s no such thing.“ Those who are seeking liberation or enlightenment say, „What is self-realization? There’s no self to be realized. The concept of self is what you need to get rid of.“

So far in our work we have not separated the two perspectives. However, we have approached the process of freeing oneself mainly from the perspective of essential development, of becoming more and more your essence. So now we will explore further the perspective of liberation and freedom.

This issue typically arises for people who have a taste of essence, some experience of their true nature, because the taste brings an appetite for complete liberation. Liberation or freedom is not really concerned with any particular essential aspect, quality, or state. It does not matter what essential state exists in the experience of liberation. If you are free from personality, you are free no matter what the state is. In the state of liberation the content of experience becomes unimportant. It is very ordinary. Nothing specific happens, no huge realization or mind-shattering experience. It is the most natural state. It is so ordinary and so natural that when we have it, we don’t know we have it. It is so uneventful that almost everyone goes in and out of it frequently. There are no flashing lights or brilliant suns. There is no drama. Liberation is beyond the dichotomy of essence and personality, and because it is so uneventful, it usually escapes us. Its subtlety prevents us from recognizing it, or even from being aware that it is happening. It is not easy to talk about it because it is so ordinary; there is nothing in particular that is present or not present. It is a state you experience every day when you are not self-conscious or concerned with anything in particular.

When your mind is free, not concerned, or worried, or focused on anything in particular, and your heart is not grasping or clinging to anything, then you are free. The most characteristic quality is that there is no fixation on anything; you’re not focused on any issue or experience. Whatever is there, is there. So there is a freedom of mind. The mind is not saying, „I want this,“ or „I want to look at this,“ or „It has to be this way.“ The mind is loose. The expression „hang loose“ tells us what it means to be liberated.

Being liberated means there is no clinging to anything; there is no worry, no concern, no heaviness. The mind is not fixated, focused or bound to any particular content; you are aware of whatever arises in the mind, without effort, without even trying to be aware. You don’t care whether you are sensing your essence, or even whether your essence is there. Whether you are happy or sad, whether a person is there with you or not, none of these things seem important. For the moment you’re completely free from all the concerns in your life. This state can never be achieved by striving for it. It will just happen one day, and if you notice it you won’t think it’s a big deal. You’ll go on eating your dinner or whatever you are doing. The moment it becomes a big deal, it’s gone. The moment you have the attitude of, „Oh, wonderful! I want to know what’s going on-I want to hang on to this,“ it’s gone. Holding on is exactly what is absent in this state, and because of the tendency to grasp this subtle state, it can be very fleeting. It’s very simple, the simplest thing there is. Young children are in this state much of the time, a state without concern for anything in particular, daydreaming or playing. But because of our early experiences, our minds become set in a certain direction, so that we fixate on a certain part of reality and reject the rest. This selectivity is the loss of the state. It occurs very early in life, but the fixation doesn’t usually become dominant until age five to seven. Until then, the experience of this state comes and goes, but gradually is experienced less and less often. Throughout life it comes and goes, for some people more often than others. It is a state of release, but without a conscious feeling of release; everything is loose. This condition of freedom is not like liberation from some particular oppression; it is the raw state of liberation itself, so liberating that it doesn’t matter what your experience is. You don’t care what you’re experiencing. Your heart is open and your mind doesn’t fixate on preconceived ideas or worry about imagined possibilities. You’re completely accepting without thinking or feeling that you’re accepting. Essence will be there freely in whatever way your being needs at that moment, but still the presence of essence is not your focus, it’s just who you are, what is present in your experience now.

We can talk about this state but we cannot say exactly what it is. You may realize that this is a very familiar state that you’ve been in many times. It’s a very ordinary state; everyone needs to experience it in order to live and enjoy life.

What can we do to prepare ourselves for this experience, and particularly for the perception of the liberated condition? Everything we do here is of course contributing to it, but let’s talk more specifically about the primary ingredients needed, what I’ll call the factors of enlightenment. What are the primary factors that will prepare you for that perception-that subtle, fleeting perception? Ultimately, all the essential aspects and the knowledge and wisdom that comes from them are needed. Here we’ll explore the seven primary ones.

First of all, you need energy, energy to work on yourself and work through the personality and its patterns. Energy is the sense that you have the capacity, the strength, the courage to do something about it, about yourself, about your life. You have the energy that makes you feel, „Yes, I can do something. I have strength, I have a spirit, I have potency.“ This energy will give you the fuel to look at yourself and understand things. Many things need to be understood and experienced; tremendous amounts of energy are needed, tremendous amounts of spirit, to be able to work through all the processes, and to deal with all the illusions that cloud the perception. So the factor of energy and strength must be freed and developed.

Another factor is determination. Without determination, the energy will be meaningless. You need steadfast determination and an unwavering will to go on, to continue in the face of discouragement and disappointment. Determination is what pushes you, what makes you persist. It is important to understand the personality issues around will and determination: what the issues are that make you feel castrated, that stop your determination, that block your will, that stop you from feeling, „Yes, I will do it.“ You need to discover what stops you from saying, „I’m going to do it. Whatever ha pens-disappointment, pain, fear-I’m going to continue. I might die before I do it, but I’m not going to stop. I’ll continue after I die.“ With this capacity you know you can act in accordance with the importance of what you are doing.

Another factor that comes into the picture is a sense of lightness about the whole thing, a sense of joyousness. It is a specific kind of joyousness, a specific kind of lightness, a specific kind of delight. The delight and the joyfulness are the actual work itself. It is a delight in the truth, delight in seeing and experiencing the truth. It is a little like curiosity–a joyful curiosity about things. If you have only energy and determination, things can get a little heavy, ponderous, and very, very serious. The factor of joyousness is the lightness, the delight that opens things up. You become delighted to be doing whatever you are doing. This lightness has a curiosity to it, the way a child is curious. When a child is curious, he doesn’t have a goal in mind. He’s not thinking of getting a B.A. or a Ph.D. He’s just curious at that moment. He isn’t concerned about what will happen next.

The next factor needed to prepare ourselves for the perception of the experience of liberation is that of compassionate kindness. It is a very important, necessary quality. You need kindness for yourself because the process is difficult. Since you’re not liberated, it is natural that you’ll suffer, so why push yourself in a way that you’ll suffer more? Why beat yourself up if you make a mistake? The factor of kindness also brings a quality of trust in yourself, trust in the process, a kind of trust in your mind, in your essence. Kindness also brings an unselfish attitude. If you have kindness, you have kindness for everybody, for everything. You have kindness for anything that suffers. You’re doing the work out of kindness because you suffer. You see that you suffer, and out of kindness for yourself you want to do something about it, and that kindness in time extends to others. Other people’s suffering hurts you too. You want to liberate yourself and you want other people to be free from their hurt and suffering. This natural course of events brings in a very important attitude that is a factor in allowing this state of liberation. This liberation has no fixation, and if you are focusing only on yourself, that is already a fixation, the biggest fixation. „What’s in it for me, what hurts me, what doesn’t hurt me, what’s good for me?“ Activity is focused around the 1, the sense of ego identity.

Compassion is a vehicle that dissolves this fixation or boundary, and frees you from self-centeredness. Kindness makes the pain of going through difficult work tolerable, and brings more trust to your mind, your essence and your heart; it brings more gentleness into your work, and more compassion for others, and works on the dissolution of the self-centered fixation which is one of the main barriers to self-liberation. It is a very necessary factor which needs to be developed while we’re working through the personality patterns and issues.

Another factor necessary in this work is peacefulness: the ability to be silent, the capacity to be still, not always in activity and noise. Stillness of the mind. In order to recognize true liberation you must have this capacity for stillness or peacefulness, because liberation is so fleeting. If you are thinking and worrying and planning and carrying on your normal fast-paced activities, you are precluding this experience from your life. As you develop and appreciate the stillness that leads to the absence of agitation, you allow a state of restfulness that leads to intuition to insight, and to the subtle perceptions.

The next factor which is needed is the capacity to be absorbed in something, to be totally absorbed with whatever you’re doing, in whatever state happens to be there. You become so one-pointed in your experience that you become completely involved in it, and so involved that you are dissolved in it. This is a certain kind of relationship to experience, a certain capacity, a certain freedom from the personality. The personality usually maintains a kind of separateness from experience. It is afraid of completely dissolving, of becoming one with experience. When you completely experience essence, there isn’t an explicit experience; you are so absorbed in it that there is nothing but the essence. When you are working on making a table you are so absorbed in it that you, the tools, and the table are all one thing. There is no mind making a distinction or separation in the experience. You can be absorbed in an action, an emotion, a thought, a sensation, or an essential aspect. The Hindus call this state samadhi, complete absorption. In this state the personality is allowing itself to die, to dissolve, to become totally immersed, totally merged with whatever happens to be the experience.

The seventh and last factor of liberation is awakening, the capacity to be awake in your experience. We talked about the capacity to be absorbed in your experience; there is also the capacity to actually be awake, to be aware. You are so aware that you feel as if you have just awakened. There’s a feeling of light all around you. The quality of awakeness is an antidote to sleepiness and to dullness of perception in doing the work. It is needed to understand the issues of your personality, and helps in dealing with attachments. You’re awake to what’s happening, not asleep to it; you’re conscious. You are awake with clarity and light; things become clear and crisp. You see things as they are, what’s there exactly, not what your unconscious sees. It’s clear and light, like an open clear sky, the absence of fog. It’s not as if the sky is clear and you are looking at it-you are the clarity. The mind is functioning with complete openness and clarity.

The combination of all these factors brings about objectivity. The seven factors-the energy, the determination, the joyfulness, the kindness, the absorption, the peacefulness, and the awakeness come together in perfect proportion, and exist as one phenomenon, whose quality is objectivity. Objectivity is exactly what is needed to deal with the personality, its basic patterns and its basic tendencies toward grasping and attachment. With objectivity you are not influenced by your superego or your unconscious; what you see is what is there. You are not determined by your past experience, by concepts, or by opinions. Your strength is objective, your will is objective, your joy is objective, your kindness is objective, your peace is objective, your capacity to be absorbed, to be dissolved is objective. Objectivity takes the seven factors to another dimension, another level. The seven factors are called the lataif, the seven elements of subtle consciousness. The energy is the red latifa, the determination is the white latifa, the joy is the yellow latifa, the kindness or compassion is the green latifa, peacefulness is the black latifa, the absorption is the blue latifa, the awakeness that can free us from desires is what we call the clear latifa. The lataif are a very subtle kind of presence; some people say it’s like air, a subtle air that produces those qualities in you.

The consciousness now is objective because it balances the seven factors, and is exactly what is needed to be free from the attachment and grasping that are the most basic characteristics of the personality. The objective consciousness, what we call the diamond consciousness, allows freedom from these aspects of the personality. The diamond consciousness is a panoramic consciousness, in contrast to the fixated focus of the personality.

If you could look at your difficulties and conflicts objectively, you would see they are nothing but resistance against that objectivity, against seeing things as they really are. You are attached to your attachments and you don’t want to see things as they are.

You are attached more than anything else to your personality itself, to the way your personality functions, to your likes and dislikes, and patterns. You’ve lived with your personality for a long time and it’s familiar to you. Even if you don’t like parts of it, it’s still familiar and dependable. So why leave it? You don’t want to be free from it.

To be objective means you must see what role your personality plays. It is this objective consciousness that can perceive the state of liberation, because it doesn’t have any of the clinging attitudes or obscurations that block the perception. These factors are called factors of enlightenment not only because they will lead you to objectivity and liberation, but also because they are present in the state of liberation itself. You are joyful, you are kind, you are energetic, you are determined, you’re clear, you’re awake, you’re completely absorbed in your experience, you’re peaceful. All these qualities are present together in the objective level, as the diamond consciousness, or the objective consciousness. When this diamond consciousness finally perceives the state of liberation, it just melts, becomes softer, delicate, liquid, relaxed, and flowing. There is no structure, no fixation, no holding this way or that way, no preference one way or another. It’s not as if you’re objective or not objective, or you’re kind or not kind, it’s none of those. They’re all there in a sort of melted, free-flowing loose way. They’re so loose, they’re so free that you don’t think of yourself as kind, you don’t think of yourself as happy. The moment you say, „Oh, I’m happy now,“ it’s gone. You are it and that’s it. You’re not concerned about it, you go about your business, have breakfast, read the paper, go to work, have a fight. It doesn’t matter. There is total freedom. You have learned how to hang loose. You are liberated and you are awake. The quality of the clear light is important because you are awake and you know that you know. That’s the moment of recognition. A child may be in a liberated state but doesn’t recognize it, loses it and doesn’t even know he lost it. But when you’re an adult you recognize it, you’re awake. That’s why the Buddhists emphasize the clear light, the awakening, because it is an ingredient that is needed. You need the clear light to be awake in this state, and to recognize it. You’re absorbed in it. You’re not trying feverishly to hold onto it.

The seven factors ultimately make the eighth factor, which is all the seven in one, making an octagon. I talked about these qualities because they are the main aspects of essence constituting the lataif, and as you continue, you’ll find that each of the lataif goes on to deeper levels. Each one is like a whole universe of its own. These are the seven primary factors needed for liberation, and are factors of the liberated state. They will help you finally to hang loose. So I think our talk today explains the relationship between the personality and essence, and how essence contributes to the freedom from the personality which in turn would be the liberation to enjoy essence.

Copyright © 1989 A-Hameed Ali

The Flame of The Search from Diamond Heart, Book III

by A.H. Almaas

Why am I here? Where am I going? We need to see how honest we can be with ourselves when trying to answer these questions. These two questions are related; that is, most people think they are here because there is a goal, they want to go somewhere. Where do you want to go? You probably think you know; do you? Do you think I know where you should go? If you think I know, can I tell you? And if I tell you, will you follow? Can you follow?

These are questions that you cannot answer with your mind. These are questions that should remain questions. Do not try to simply answer them mentally. These questions are like a flame. If you answer them with your mind, you will put out the flame, because the mind doesn’t, the mind can’t know the answers to these questions. When you answer them with your mind and you think you know, the question is gone. When you believe you have answered such questions, the flame is gone and there is no more inquiry.

If you settle for answers on this level, you will live like most of humanity, who assume that they know why they are here and where they are going. Such a life typically feels shallow and insignificant. A life with no fundamental questioning is a life lived according to formulas, according to what one has heard from others. But why should you believe what others tell you about life? You don’t actually know yet what is true for you, what is important for you, what will work for you.

It is better to remain ignorant than to pretend knowledge. If you know that you are ignorant and don’t pretend otherwise, there is a question that stays alive and continues to burn in you, a deep hunger for the truth.

If you look at every moment of your life, such as this moment, you will see that most of the time you believe that you know what is the best thing for you at that moment. You think, feel, and behave as if you know what is supposed to happen, as if you know what you want and what is important to want. You live your life believing at every moment that you know how you should be. Where does this knowledge come from?

Most of it comes from your early childhood, both from what you were directly taught and by what you indirectly absorbed from your surroundings. Some of it comes from what you have heard or read. It is conditioned knowledge. Whatever the source, conditioned knowledge is useless in answering the fundamental questions, such as the question of why we are here. The conditioned knowledge says that what I’m here for is to be happy, to be successful, to feel good, to get what I think I want, to satisfy my dreams, to get someone to love me, or to make a lot of money. The conditioning is simply a mechanism for survival. You have survived, you are here–so that knowledge has done, and is doing, its job. If you want to continue merely surviving, you can. But what difference is there then between you and any animal, any insect that is born, lives and dies?

So the conditioned knowledge says that what I’m here for is to be happy, to be successful, to feel good, to get what I think I want, to satisfy my dreams, to get somebody to love me, or to make a lot of money. This is the knowledge that you have been conditioned with, and it is useless for answering fundamental questions.

How do you know that the knowledge you get from others is the truth? How do you know that your teachers, or even the great philosophers, have the answer that is appropriate for you? Christ says to love your neighbor. Do you really know that that is what you need to do? Buddha says that enlightenment is the best thing. How do you know that is what you need?

Some people say you have to learn to be yourself. It sounds good. Some people say you should be free from your personality and develop your Essence. It sounds great. How do you know it will resolve your situation? You don’t really know whether any of these ideas are relevant or true for you. You can’t know with certainty until you have experimented and learned from your own experience. Until then your action is based on faith or belief If you assume unquestioningly that what someone else says is the truth, your inner flame will be extinguished. You will believe that you have answered questions when you haven’t answered them; someone else has. And they haven’t answered them for you, but for themselves. We comfort ourselves by believing that others know, and that we can use their knowledge. It’s a very comforting thought; it encourages us to be lazy. We comfort ourselves by saying to ourselves, „Somebody knows, and in time I’ll get around to studying it. It’s already known and always available to me.“

But do you, yourself, really know in your heart what is supposed to happen? Do you ever allow yourself to question, to have a burning question-and not put out the flame quickly with the first answer that you hear? You put out the flame so that you can return to your sense of comfort and security.

Someone tells you that it’s good to pay attention, to be aware. When you try it, it helps a little-but you still don’t know whether it’s the answer. You don’t know whether it will actually resolve your situation. And if you believe you know, you’re lying to yourself. You need to keep the question alive while you investigate for yourself.

Our questions about why we are here and where we are going are uncomfortable, but they are real questions for every human being. If you do not ask them, and allow them to be ongoing questions, you will never know for yourself what it’s all about. You will never know who you are, why you’re here, and where you are going. Your mind is full of ideas and dreams and plans about what will fulfill you, what will make you happy, what will give you freedom. But these ideas silence the question, comfort your mind, and put out the flame.

So begin with the awareness that you don’t know the answers. And be aware of the feverish attempts in your mind to convince yourself that you know. It’s not only that you don’t know the answers, you don’t know whether the questions can be answered. Can you allow the questions to remain if you don’t know whether there is an answer? Can you be that sincere with yourself You believe you’re here because you believe you can get something here, you believe you can experience something here, you hope you can find some freedom here. But do you really know that? Are you certain that what we are doing is right for you? Can you ever be certain if you don’t answer the questions for yourself.

Perhaps you have heard the idea that if you think you need love, you need to love others, be selfless. It sounds good. It’s what the great masters say. But for you it is hearsay, a rumor, a possibility worth inquiring about. It is not knowledge yet. Is it possible to leave your ideas, your thoughts, your knowledge behind, and let the inquiry be? Can you let the question stand? Can you for a while forget all your formulas, all of what you have heard or read, everything your parents said or didn’t say, what all the great teachers have said, and remain alone with the question? Why are you here? Where are you going? What is it all about? Can you let yourself have that question intensely-can you let that flame burn in you without needing to put it out with an answer?

Can we let this inquiry deepen in us, in our hearts, in our bellies, in our being? Can we let our being be a question mark, a yearning? It is a motiveless search, a search that does not depend on any ideas about going somewhere. There is no goal in sight, so it becomes a flame that continues to burn and deepen with time. Don’t cover it up, put it out, or let it go; just let it be. Let it consume you. Let it bum away all your ideas and beliefs about how things should be. Let it burn away all your concepts about good and bad. Let that inquiry deepen and expand, so that you can forget. Let go of all you have learned … for a while at least.

Can you exist as an inquiry, an inquiry into the truth? Are you here just to live, work, eat, love, hate, have children, and die? Can you let go of what you believe you have? Can your mind empty itself of all your possessions, beliefs, theories, knowledge, understanding, and simply remain as a search, a pure inquiry not influenced by anyone or anything, even your own past? Even if you felt love and freedom and relaxation and so on in the past, what makes you think these things are what you need at this moment? The insights you had in the past might have been right, but how do you know they are what you need now and in the future? In order to find out, all you can do is let them go. Can you remain completely ignorant, unknowing; can you let your mind go, not impose anything on your mind, and at the same time not go dead, not become unconscious?

Can we rid ourselves of all influences, of the influences of others‘ ideas and of our own past, and remain in the now, as an inquiry? You can observe that every time someone says something that sounds true, or every time you have an insight, you say, „Oh, wonderful, that must be it.“ You want to put out the flame. You want the first answer that comes to silence the questioning.

Why are we in such haste to have answers? We jump on the first promise of salvation that comes. Why not stay with the question? What makes you think that salvation is the answer, that freedom is the answer? What makes you think that enlightenment is the answer? What makes you think that love is the answer? You might feel that you want these things, but how do you know that getting them is the best thing that could happen in this moment? How do you know whether you’re supposed to be dead or alive, rich or poor, free or enslaved? Is it possible to let your mind be free?

I am not trying to give you an answer; I’m just giving you a question. You need to let your being be ablaze like a flame, an aspiring flame, with no preconceived ideas about what it aspires to. To be just burning intensely, deeply wanting to know, wanting to see the truth without following any preconceptions, totally in the present with the question itself, and let it burn away all the ideas, all the beliefs, all the concepts, even the ones you learned from the great teachings. If you don’t allow that flame completely, will you ever rest in your life? Will you ever rest in your life as long as you’re covering up your question, answering it before it’s really answered? Will you ever really be content with someone else’s answer?

As you see, it is a completely personal quest. It is your situation, your life, your mind; no one else can answer these questions for you. Whatever answer comes from outside, belongs to the outside; you can try it on for size, but you must make your own inquiry. You can explore any suggestion, any guidance, but you need to keep the inquiry going. Don’t just silence it because you have heard something that sounds right. Without this sincere questioning, this motiveless search-without this flame-the Work cannot be done. Without the flame, any work is done simply according to ideas and beliefs.

The Work must be done according to your own inquiry; the Work that we do here is only a guidance. Your motivation has to be pure, real and true; your flame has to be there; otherwise you’ll use the Work for the wrong purpose. You’ll get somewhere according to an idea, but it is not necessarily where your Being would take you without constraint. You can develop this and that, become free from this and that, but how do you know whether that will fulfill your destiny? You might think you’re supposed to be more loving, or less afraid, or more comfortable, or more relaxed, or richer, or more beautiful. Maybe you are,  maybe not. These are just ideas. But true questioning, sincere questioning doesn’t have a particular goal. If you think you have a goal, an end, and if you think you’re going to go there, you’ve already extinguished the flame. If you’ve told yourself you’re here because you want to be enlightened, you want to be free, you want to be loving, you want to be this or that, that means that you already know.

But you don’t know, really. It’s a lie to believe that you know. It’s true that there’s a question and that you don’t know the answer-that is the truth. The most honest answer you can give to the question „Why am I here?“ is that I am here because I don’t know. The truest reason for you to be here is to fan that flame of inquiry.

These questions are not theoretical or philosophical. They are at the root and heart of your life, relevant for every moment of your life, whatever you’re doing. If you don’t know but you’re pretending that you know, you’re wasting the moment. It’s a complete waste, regardless of what you’re doing. It’s not only that the idea in your mind might be the wrong one for you-the fact that it is an idea, instead of a direct perception, puts out the flame of the search, and your unfoldment is blocked. Whenever the answer is not a direct perception it will block or distort your experience.

What I’m saying is not meant to lead you to blame yourself for believing that you know. It’s not a matter of trying to make you „good.“ No, we’re trying to see the truth. You need to see clearly all the ways that you snuff out the flame, and how consistently you silence the question.

You might do some work on yourself and have a wonderful experience, a great insight or state. But how do you know that this wonderful experience is what is needed right now? How do you know that the knowledge you think you’re getting will resolve your situation? The flame must continue. The fire of inquiry needs to be fed, needs to grow, to intensify, to deepen. Our inquiry needs to be directed not at trying to reduce it, but to letting it grow. The flame needs to burn away all the rest, to grow until it answers itself by itself becoming the fulfillment. The fire of that inquiry can burn away all the dross, all the resistance, all the ideas, all the accumulation of the past so you can actually see what is really there, the whole picture in the present moment without needing to depend on anything from the past or on anyone else’s experience. When you know in the moment without any influence, then you can completely be alone with your own truth. Without that, it’s obvious that you can’t know with certainty. Only with that certainty can life become significant. If you know, for yourself, who you are, you will know where you are going, and you will be fulfilled.

Yes, there are guidance and help here, but not to give answers, only to help you inquire. This Work is to encourage your own inner development, whatever that may be, to help you remain alone with your inquiry. It can be difficult to be alone with yourself. We are not usually supported or encouraged to let our being just be, to be authentic, and not an imitation or a reaction. You can be open, listening to what others suggest, but these things are only possibilities; you still need to inquire by yourself within the intimacy of your own heart. Is this answer your own experience, your answer? You need to be completely open, and not use what you hear to comfort yourself. You need to use it to add fuel to your inquiry.

Can you let yourself be completely intimate with yourself, completely uninfluenced and unbiased? Can you let this inquiry, this flame, burn in the intimacy, in the utter aloneness within?

Copyright © 1990 A-Hameed Ali

Clarification of the Personality from Diamond Heart, Book IV
by A.H. Almaas

Many spiritual teachers describe their experience of realization as if they suddenly became realized and the personality just died, or fell away. So it is understandable that you might fantasize that one day you will finish your meditation and there will be no personality left. This idea of enlightenment or self-realization is misguided, although it is true that you can experience sudden revelations or insights that can change the rest of your life. My perception of what happens with people who claim to have lost their personality totally and spontaneously is that there often remains a split-off or suppressed part which will manifest as a distortion or a lack of integration. This means that there has been an essential realization, but the realization has not clarified the personality. It is, rather, a state of transcendence of the ego personality. If the personality is abandoned rather than integrated, the totality of life cannot be lived.

We can look at the process of realization from the perspective of transcendence or from the perspective of embodiment. When people talk about getting rid of  the ego, they’re talking about a transcendent experience. It is possible to transcend the personality or the ego, or even physical existence. However, there is a more difficult process which leads to the state of embodiment of reality. Rather than simply transcending the personality or physical existence, this state involves actually embodying essential existence in one’s life.

Of course, some systems do encompass both transcendence and embodiment. If you look at your experience here in terms of essential realization, what you will see in the approach to our Work is transcendence followed by embodiment. This is what is sometimes called death and rebirth; death is transcendence and the rebirth is embodiment. In embodiment, the personality itself becomes permeable, and thus it is influenced by the essential realization. True essential personal life becomes possible only when essential realization permeates the personality so that you are living according to your realization. You have a personal, practical life-relationships, career, interests, things you enjoy doing, things you don’t want to do. You’re still a person, not just a disembodied spirit.

This process of embodiment is very intriguing and exciting. It is fulfilling and satisfying in such a way that you realize how having a human life makes sense. It makes sense to all of you–to the mind, to the heart, to the personality, to your body. Human life is not complete until the realization can be integrated into every aspect of you, so that all elements of you are in harmony and have an understanding of the situation. if one part of you is alienated, rejected or split away, the integration is not yet complete.

Embodiment becomes possible as the personality is clarified. The idea of clarifying the personality can be confusing because we often experience the personality as the source of our trouble. As we work on ourselves, we are constantly seeing the problems and suffering of the ego-ignorance, hatred, rage, fear, jealousy. So how, we wonder, can the personality be spiritual? It seems that the best thing we could do would be to obliterate it, to wage spiritual warfare, inner guerrilla warfare. In fact, many stages of the Work do feel like a kind of warfare. But successful warfare doesn’t mean destruction of the enemy, it leads, rather, to the annexation of the territory. This is often the original reason for warfare; it is actually a movement towards expansion rather than destruction.

It’s a strange thing, this struggle we go through between our beingness and the personality. It is like warfare-one side triumphs over the other-but even though there is an annexation of the territory, inner turmoil continues. The counterrevolutionary action inside doesn’t end just because one side annexes the other and takes it over. As long as one side is dominating the other, there cannot be peace. In order to resolve this conflict, we need to understand the actual nature of the personality. If we look at it objectively with no preconceived ideas, what is this creature? Why does it cause so much trouble? Why does everyone blame everything on the ego? Many spiritual books call personality the devil, the animal or the monster, judging and rejecting it. At the same time, everyone talks about love. People say you must submit or surrender your personality.

It is true that sometimes the personality appears as a monster or a devil. If you look with an inner eye, it might even look like such a thing. But what is this personality that sometimes appears as a devil, sometimes a child, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes a frustrator, sometimes a saboteur, sometimes a doer, sometimes an observer, sometimes a rebel, and so on? The personality must have some kind of intelligence, some amazing power, to manifest in all these ways. One minute it appears as an innocent child; the next, it’s a monster. One moment it’s vulnerable and defenseless, the next moment it’s a gladiator.

At some point we can perceive that the inner child, the ego, the ego identity, the emotional self, the mind, the false personality, the observer, the doer, the actor, the one who resists, and the one who hates, are actually all one. They’re just different faces of the same thing that we call personality, appearing in different forms depending on the situation. We have seen that Essence is a substantial presence, but we are surprised when we realize that it is not only Essence that is substantial; the personality itself is a substantial existence. You can observe that even your personality itself is a material. It has an inner substance.

It is true that there are thoughts and feelings and sensations connected to it, but at some point you feel your personality as a kind of presence. It doesn’t have the sense of immediate reality and freshness, the sense of truthfulness, brilliance and luminosity of Essence; in fact, it is usually felt as a thickness, a dullness, a heaviness. But personality is not just a collection of thoughts; it exists as its own kind of material or medium.

Many systems claim that the personality does not exist, that ego does not exist. It is true that from a certain perspective one can see that it does not exist. But at the level where personality does not exist, neither does anything else. Your body does not exist on that level, nor does physical reality for that matter. As long as there is conceptualization, your personality exists just like anything else, just as Essence exists. When we can see this substantial existence of the personality, it is possible for us to comprehend what it would mean for the personality to be purified and clarified.

For most people, the Personality manifests at the beginning as a kind of resistance, a leadenness, a cloudiness in the mind. When the personality is unclear, the personality exists as an unclarified, impure substance. We call it ‚impure‘ not in a judgmental or moralistic sense, but because it doesn’t exist as its own pure nature. What are the „impurities“ of the personality? What will be clarified from the personality? The answer is simple: the past. The thickness, the dullness, the suffering that you experience as the personality are there because the personality does not exist in its pure form. It carries the past with it, and the past exists as conflicts, memories, undischarged feelings, misunderstandings, ignorance, and all the reactions, associations, and fantasies corresponding to all the ignorance from the past.

The personality is like dirty water that has been used many times to clean things but it has not been cleaned or purified itself. The personality needs to be filtered. The past needs to be discharged, eliminated. The substantial state of the personality-what I call false pearl-creates a certain contraction in the spleen and pancreas area. I believe the connection to the spleen and the pancreas is that the physiological job of the spleen is to eliminate dead white corpuscles. The white blood cells exist for defense and protection, which is what the personality is trying to do. Once these cells have done their job, they are cleared from the blood.

The personality, however, does not usually discard old defenses that are no longer needed, and these old defenses constitute much of the unclarity and dullness of the personality. At different points in your work you experience different aspects of this unclarity, depending on what area you are working on, and the previous level of clarification of your personality. For example, you might be working for some time on material in the personality that has to do with security and the essential aspect of Will, and another time you might be working on defenses regarding Strength.

Also, the deeper you go into your work, the more the subtle structures in the personality are experienced as false. We call this unclarity the ‚false pearl, “ contrasting it to the true person, which we call the Pearl.

So perhaps we are beginning to understand something about the unclarity, the opaqueness of the personality: It contains elements that were supposed to have been discharged, but have not yet been eliminated. A major part of what needs to be eliminated is conditioning that was once useful for protection and defense, even for physical survival. Many of our patterns, conflicts, and ignorance remain as part of the struggle for survival, for protection. We are now stuck with those patterns and mechanisms that we developed in our past to protect us from too much pain or from annihilation. We have not been able to let them go, and they have determined the content of our personality.

This is the process of the clarification of the personality: Each time you understand an issue or an identification with a past conflict or a now-unnecessary defense, you discharge feelings associated with the issue and work through the feelings and the beliefs about it. As you have seen many times, working through an issue-which involves ceasing to be identified with it–typically allows the arising of an essential state. In this process of working through an issue related to any essential quality, the personality confronts the part of its structure that substitutes and compensates for the lack of that true quality. For example, issues around essential strength will uncover the false strength of the personality. When this compensation is seen through and the essential strength is freed, there is no more need for the personality structure of the false strength.

Copyright © 1997 A-Hameed Ali