Translation
of interview with Hameed in June 2006
by Han van den Boogaard
Publication in the magazine InZicht (Insight),
issue 1, 2007.
Learning to see through the ego
A.H. Almaas explains the role of modern-day psychology
in his own way of working, and gives comments on the content
of his latest book, Brilliancy, in which human intelligence
as an expression of impersonal consciousness is described
and explored.
You work with groups in the context of the ‘Diamond
Approach’. What is the core of the approach?
The Diamond Approach is a way of working towards spiritual
transformation. What is special about it is that it uses
a language that is oriented towards the west and integrates
western psychology. Other approaches primarily make use
of ancient vocabularies, wisdom as it was imported from
the east long ago. We, on the other hand, make use of modern
psychological insights.
Isn’t the objective of modern psychology precisely
to strengthen the ego?
We make use of psychology, but our goal is not the same.
We use it only in order to be able to understand the ego.
Psychology provides a very useful insight into ego – how
it develops, what it consists of. Once you understand what
the ego is, there is the chance that it will become somewhat
lighter, more transparent, so that you get a better view
of spiritual reality.
But isn’t the ego no more than an idea?
The ego is an idea. But it influences our awareness.
It gives us a certain sense of identity. It gets in our
way, because we believe that that is what we are. We have
to learn to see through the ego, learn what it consists
of: concepts, ideas, assumptions, the self-image and so
on. We need to learn to see through all that, so that we
can drop our armor and become more open. In principle,
the ego is nothing more than a phase. Consciousness, awareness,
is structured by the ego. You can take the next step on
the basis of a health ego structure. A strong ego structure
is a prerequisite. But if you don’t take that step,
the ego becomes an obstacle that seriously limits you.
How do you see the role of teacher? Do you think
direct transmission of knowledge from teacher to student
is possible?
It is not only possible, it is necessary if there is
to be spiritual transformation. A teacher must possess
a certain degree of development, insight, spiritual experience
and wisdom that he can transmit. When a teacher is sufficiently
developed spiritually, it happens by itself, effortlessly.
So no words are needed?
No. Spiritual transmission means wordlessly. Transmission
of this kind is an energetic phenomenon. During my meetings
I use words, just like other teachers. While I am speaking
about spiritual reality, my own presence transmits something
of that reality. Students who are open, who are sensitive
to it, pick up on this. At the same time they try to follow
my verbalization. They go together, the verbalization and
the energy.
It seems to me that listening to the words, trying to
follow what is being said, would actually block the energy.
It might. That’s why we always tell students to
follow the words, but to stay relaxed and receptive at
the same time. It has to do with the way in which we use
spiritual transmission. It is different from some other
approaches. The Tibetan approach, for example, uses special
rituals to make transmission possible. The rituals are
separate from the content that is to be transmitted. We
don’t do it like that. For us, transmission is an
integral part of our approach. Throughout the learning
process, whereby the student slowly but surely becomes
more present, more open, he gets a clearer view of reality.
Spiritual transmission happens continually if the student
is open to it.
Your latest books is called ‘Brilliancy’.
What is it that you are trying to explain in the book?
The purpose of the book is to make it clear that intelligence
is a spiritual characteristic. It is not something functional,
something mental. Intelligence ensures that your understanding
functions in the most optimal, most efficient way. It is
a specific characteristic that your consciousness can possess.
In that sense it is a specific manifestation of consciousness
itself.
You refer to consciousness as something that is linked
to the individual. I look at it much more as something
impersonal.
Consciousness is impersonal, but it is always that which
makes us a person. Our ordinary consciousness is a form
of expression of the impersonal consciousness. Your personal
consciousness is not my personal consciousness. But ultimately,
they are both a form of expression of the one impersonal
consciousness. It expresses itself in a personal way.
In your book you indicate that children lose their original,
intuitive intelligence bit by bit. You seem to have the
tendency to explain processes like this from a psycho-dynamic
perspective, particularly when it has to do with the role
that the parents play in the process.
The ground of awareness, impersonal consciousness, slowly
become more externally oriented during the development
of the ego. I don’t see this as a psychodynamic process,
but a product of the cognitive development, the concepts
and interpretations that are formed in relation to our
experience of the world. We lose essential aspects of our
presence, we become disconnected from them, usually as
a result of the problems we are confronted with in our
early childhood, specifically in the interaction with our
parents and the environment in which we grow up. So there
are psychodynamic causes for the gradual loss of the original
awareness.
To give an example: if you have a feeling of not being
loved, or if your own love is not seen, recognized and
valued, the experience of the pure awareness of love is
damaged. If you learn to understand the problem and work
with it, you can become aware again of what love is – that
it is something that can be experience as pure awareness,
a presence that has taken the form of love. The same applies
for other forms: intelligence, strength and so on.
By recognizing love, intelligence or strength as pure
characteristics of awareness, you can learn to remain present
in that awareness. It is a relatively simple way to become
aware again of impersonal awareness, presence without characteristics.
Traditional teaching begins with the realization of the
impersonal awareness and the pure aspects of awareness
arise as a result of that realization. The Diamond Approach
takes the opposite path: firstly the pure aspects of awareness
are realized, so that they can form a bridgehead for the
realization of impersonal awareness. This approach makes
impersonal presence more easily accessible for more people,
because the aspects of awareness are more easily recognized
than impersonal awareness.
Do you differentiate between being present and
awareness?
Presence is awareness, but then awareness that is aware
of itself. Pure awareness can be aware of its own existence,
independently of the form and content of any experience.
Experience itself then becomes aware of its own presence.
Presence and awareness are not two different things, because
the experience is non-dual, no subject and object. It is
therefore not awareness that is involved in self-reflection,
but awareness that is aware of itself by being itself.
In other words, consciously being oneself is the same as
being conscious of oneself.
You say somewhere that many people experience
the state of oneness, even if only fleetingly. You compare
seeing someone else from the state of oneness with seeing
one cell of a living organism. But doesn’t the experience
of oneness imply the total absence of the experience of
the other? Doesn’t it imply that things are no longer
experienced as being different from yourself?
Yes and no. We can experience pure awareness without
content of experience or with content of experience. In
the first case it is not a question of conscious experience
because there is nothing to experience. There is only total
stillness and peace without awareness of it. That is the
absolute that is aware of nothing other than itself.
But we can also experience pure awareness with content.
We experience all manifestation then as a manifestation
of our being; it is identical with the absolute, but it
manifests itself in innumerable ways. The different forms
taken by the absolute are not seen as separate and different
from each other, without an underlying connection, but
still as the absolute, even though it is perceived in innumerable
forms.
It is comparable with the waves of the ocean; here are
very many of them, but it remains one ocean. In the experience
of awareness with content, I am the ocean, but I am also
aware of the waves. Some of them manifest as people. But
you can also see people as cells in the cosmic organism.
This is how I see the state of oneness, the oneness of
existence or awareness. Individuals appear within the oneness,
but they are not separate from the ,medium of awareness.
Some of the individuals are aware of their true nature,
pure awareness, but most are not.
When you see the truth, you lose your identity.
What is left?
What is left depends on the degree to which we lose our
identity. Pure awareness has different levels. One of them
is pure life; another level is pure presence; yet another
level is pure consciousness; still another is pure emptiness.
The experience depends on the layer of the identity, the
kind of identity we lose.
When the identity is completely dissolved, all the levels
are seen as one truth. The absolute can then be seen as
emptiness, consciousness, presence, life, but they represent
one and the same truth.
We can also say that the absolute remains, but that doesn’t
do justice to the different ways in which the absolute
can be experienced. One important difference, for example,
is whether the absolute is experienced with or without
content of experience. In the first case there is no conscious
experience. In the second case everything is there, but
only as the manifestation of pure consciousness.
Is there still space for the world of appearances in
the experience of the absolute?
When we experience ourself as the absolute, the world
appears as thought, as an idea or image. It is then insignificant
in relation to the immeasurableness of the absolute. But
the appearance of the world is also seen as the absolute
that thinks or imagines the world. The whole universe then
appears as a creation of the absolute. So it is not a thought
of an individual, but the thought of the absolute, in the
form of all appearances which manifest.
