Diamond Heart Inexhaustible Mystery

The final volume in A. H. Almaas' masterwork on the contemporary spiritual path known as the Diamond Approach From one perspective, we can see ourselves merely as human beings struggling in a crowded and chaotic world of suffering. Inexhaustible Mystery opens our eyes to a different reality, one that turns our familiar world inside out. We need only explore—with curiosity and love—our true potential as human beings in order to discover infinite depth and creativity in our lives as we act and interact in the world. When time and space expand their meaning, we come to know ourselves as having infinite dimensions of being and qualities of spirit, and uncover new mysteries about ourselves, one another, and the reality we live in. This is the last of the five-volume Diamond Heart series of transcribed and edited talks given by A. H. Almaas to inner-work groups in California and Colorado.

The final volume in A. H. Almaas' masterwork on the contemporary spiritual path known as the Diamond Approach From one perspective, we can see ourselves merely as human beings struggling in a crowded and chaotic world of suffering. Inexhaustible Mystery opens our eyes to a different reality, one that turns our familiar world inside out. We need only explore—with curiosity and love—our true potential as human beings in order to discover infinite depth and creativity in our lives as we act and interact in the world. When time and space expand their meaning, we come to know ourselves as having infinite dimensions of being and qualities of spirit, and uncover new mysteries about ourselves, one another, and the reality we live in. This is the last of the five-volume Diamond Heart series of transcribed and edited talks given by A. H. Almaas to inner-work groups in California and Colorado.

The opening installment in a five-volume series on the Diamond Approach—a path to greater self- and spiritual realization—presented by its founder Founded by spiritual teacher A. H. Almaas, the Diamond Approach presents a unique path to enlightenment that borrows from modern psychology and therapy. Through the method’s core practice of inquiry, practitioners engage with their inner world—the very qualities and experiences that make them human—as a means of unlocking their potential and discovering the true power of their spiritual nature. This five-volume series is a collection of Almaas’ lectures on the Diamond Approach. In Elements of the Real Man, he covers topics such as faith, commitment, nobility and suffering, truth and compassion, allowing, and growing up. Through these talks, Almaas offers valuable guidance and advice for those on a spiritual path, and he explores the challenges and psychological barriers faced by those seeking self-realization.

The final volume in A. H. Almaas' masterwork on the contemporary spiritual path known as the Diamond Approach From one perspective, we can see ourselves merely as human beings struggling in a crowded and chaotic world of suffering. Inexhaustible Mystery opens our eyes to a different reality, one that turns our familiar world inside out. We need only explore—with curiosity and love—our true potential as human beings in order to discover infinite depth and creativity in our lives as we act and interact in the world. When time and space expand their meaning, we come to know ourselves as having infinite dimensions of being and qualities of spirit, and uncover new mysteries about ourselves, one another, and the reality we live in. This is the last of the five-volume Diamond Heart series of transcribed and edited talks given by A. H. Almaas to inner-work groups in California and Colorado.

A unique volume, Inventing Times Square approaches the subject of twentieth-century American city culture through a multidimensional examination of one quintessential urban space: Times Square. Ranging in time from 1905, when the crossroad was given its present name, through to the current plans for redevelopment, the authors examine Times Square as economic hub, real estate bonanza, entertainment center, advertising medium, architectural experiment, and erotic netherworld. Though the volume centers on Times Square, the essays venture much further into urban history and American social history, revealing in the process how Times Square reflected—even epitomized—America as it became an urban consumer culture.

Two innovative spiritual teachers show how to use desire and passion—eros—as a gateway to realizing our fullest potential What do desire and passion have to do with our spiritual journey? According to A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson, they are an essential part of it. Conventional wisdom cautions that desire and passion are opposed to the spiritual path—that engaging in desire will take you more into the world, into egoic life. And for most people, that is exactly what happens. We naturally tend to experience wanting in a self-centered way. The Power of Divine Eros challenges the view that the divine and the erotic are separate. When we open to the energy, aliveness, spontaneity, and zest of erotic love, we will find it inseparable from the realm of the holy and sacred. When this is understood, desire and passion become a gateway to wholeness and to realizing our full potential. Through guided exercises, the authors reveal how our relationships become opportunities on the spiritual journey to express ourselves authentically, to relate with openness, and to discover dynamic inner realms with another person. Through embodying the energy of eros, each of us can learn to be fully real and alive in all of our interactions.

In Luminous Night's Journey, Almaas shares excerpts from his personal journal, which describe a certain thread in his own journey of realization and the processes involved in integrating that realization. This publication marks a fortunate development in our knowledge of how Being is realized in and through the human soul: The process of realization and integration of true nature described in the voice of one who articulates precisely and vividly the psychological and epistemological barriers which confront the individual consciousness as realization is integrated in the context of personal life. Almaas describes how his participation in the unfolding manifestation of Being ushers him into realms that expose and transform increasingly deep ego structures and attachments. Luminous Night's Journey clarifies how the unveiling of Being and the exposure of ego structures constitute one process, leading to the soul's integrated realization of absolute nature and the manifestation of the human being as a personal embodiment of that nature.

Well-known spiritual teacher A. H. Almaas uses the metaphor of the mysterious philosopher's stone to discuss a tremendous liberating power that leads to endless enlightenment For millennia alchemists sought the philosophers’ stone, the miracle substance believed to be the key to all the secrets of existence. The quest was fueled by some of the prime questions of human existence: What am I? Why am I here? How has this world come to be? A. H. Almaas shows that the tremendous liberating power of the mysterious philosophers’ stone is closer to us than we realize. In fact, it is the true nature of all reality—in all times and all places, without being limited to being anything in particular. Through the philosophers’ stone, real transformation can happen, our consciousness can become free, and we can open to all the possibilities of reality. Almaas discusses the factors that are involved in igniting the catalytic property of the philosophers’ stone and then begins to unpack the properties of true nature when it is free of constraints. Finally, we are left with the revelation that true nature is endlessly knowable, and yet nothing we can know or say about it exhausts its mystery and power. The result is a new understanding of what liberation and practice are—and a view of what it’s like when seeking ceases and life becomes a process of continual discovery. We begin to appreciate that the freedom of reality expressed in the complete and fulfilled life all human beings seek—and few find—is actually the simplicity of the ordinary.

This marvelous book will show you how to read the signs of the times and prepare you to bear yourself as a Christian no matter what the future holds.

For 100 days, Traktung Yeshe Dorje, an American born lama in the Nyingma lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism kept a journal of short reflections. Some mornings, the heartbreaking poetry of devotion, or essays in celebration of dawn, light, trees; on others, razor-like distinctions about the nature of the mind, challenges to conventional views of seeing, or seething commentary on the shallowness of contemporary culture. Taken together, but in small considered bites, the entries will provide a rare meal to any sincere practitioner who recognizes direct and authentic spiritual discourse. The unique offering of this book is the deeply personal manner in which insights are presented-using a journal format rather than direct instructions about spiritual topics. An astute reader will glimpse-even “fall into”-the way of perceiving of a tantric spiritual adept. We experience, if only for a moment, how things appear to one whose mind is free from conditioning. Eye to Form challenges the reader to consider familiar topics and scenarios from a new, perhaps radical, perspective. The invitation here is to profound consideration of life’s deeper meanings through the unique intersection of beauty, wisdom and silence. This is not a “practical guide”-it offers no plans for or steps to enlightenment or happiness. In fact, the author has no compunction in undermining such fast-food approaches to the recognition of Buddhahood. Eye to Form, therefore, can be extremely beneficial to those who not looking to be told what to do, but rather are inspired to think deeply, carefully and freshly. Intelligent choices on the spiritual path can be made only as one’s considerations reach beyond ordinary-mind’s conditioning. The challenge for this type of consideration is perhaps more useful than yet another self-help manual. Traktung Yeshe Dorje has been guiding both individuals and community for the last 23 years, drawing his students and friends into the world of spiritual awakening by offering them a window into a different way of considering appearances. He teaches in the U.S. and Europe, and is also president of Wishing Tree Gardens, a non-profit sustainable-agriculture educational program in Ann Arbor, Michigan.