A.H. Almaas Diamond Approach
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y

 

Boundaries

To allow yourself not to have boundaries means to accept your aloneness. At the very core of our assumptions about reality, we think aloneness means separateness. But aloneness is not being separate. The aloneness means having no boundaries. How can this be? It is a paradox. The aloneness means your personality is not there, that Essence is on its own without personality. It is beingness without the label. (Diamond Heart Book 2, pg 168)

 

body armor

 

Boundaries, body and balance

When the body is relaxed and balanced and has no tension, there are no boundaries. The boundaries are tensions in the body. The experience of boundaries goes along with tensions in the body. The body armor is the boundary. When the body is balanced, relaxed, there is no need for boundaries. So you could say that some self-realization can be done physically. In the end, self-realization is the completely relaxed body, nothing else. When the body is completely relaxed, it is the window to the universe. That window allows the possibility of perception, awareness and experience. When the body goes, the window is gone, which is a further development, a greater opening. (Diamond Heart Book 4, p132)

 

boundaries ego

 

Dissolving of boundaries

We already know how modification of the self-image can change a person's experience and action in the world. This is, in fact, one way of seeing the action of any kind of psychotherapy. As some of the boundaries imposed on an individual by his self-image are dissolved, he gains greater freedom of perception and action. For instance, as the "weak" person understands his "weakness", as he sees its genesis and understands its psychodynamics, this boundary of "weakness" is challenged and gradually dissolves. As a person stops thinking of himself as "weak", his actions in the world change. In fact, he starts acting in ways that he had never thought he could, taking actions that he had thought only "strong" people could take, or even doing things that he had never thought anyone could do. (The Void, pg 18)

 

ego boundaries

 

Boundaries and freedom

One cannot free oneself from boundaries for several reasons:

  • One is the boundaries. The sense of being an individual is the presence of boundaries. So if one does anything to try to free himself, he will be automatically asserting his presence, which is the presence of boundaries. If he even desires, wishes or wants the absence of boundaries he will be merely expressing the desires, wishes and wants of his individuality; and hence he will be asserting the presence of boundaries. Being has no desires. Being, even the Personal Essence, is completely desireless. The presence of any desire is the presence of the ego individuality, and hence of ego boundaries. Most spiritual teachings say that one cannot attain enlightenment if one desires it; only when one let's go of all desire, even desire for enlightenment, can it happen.
  • Doing anything at all indicates the presence of ego activity, and the action of hope and desire...
  • Using any technique or method, doing anything intentional, means also asserting the will of the ego, which is inseparable from the ego individuality. (The Pearl Beyond Price, pg 399)

 

boundaries ego

 

Physical boundaries

It is not that physical boundaries don't exist -- if that were the case, there would be no differentiation, no color, no action. They do exist, but not as partitioning walls ... they exist as differentiating outlines, articulating many different tastes, textures, and colors, without obscuring the underlying nature of everything as One. It is as though you have dropped different colors of dye into a fluid; many colors are swirling around, but it is still the same fluid. One way of putting it is that the boundaries define a difference, but not a separateness. So I am different from you, but I am not separate from you; people are different from each other, but they are not separate from each other. The existence of boundaries, then, does not negate the underlying unity. Boundaries are characteristic of the objective concepts or noetic forms, relevant on the level of creation and existence. Boundaries and the forms they define are characteristics of the thoughts of God, as it were. This is why we call the universe a mind. To the ego, separateness means impermeable boundaries, or isolation, but real separation is something quite different. Real separation means particularization out of the unity or, for human beings, individuation. It means recognizing that your true nature is not determined by external influences. At a deep unconscious level, it involves separating from your mother -- separating in the sense that who you take yourself to be is not determined by her. This is not isolating yourself, but rather recognizing your uniqueness and individuating. (Facets of Unity, pg 105)

ego boundaries

 

Soul and ego boundaries

Although these ego boundaries form the basis of our sense of separateness, the belief that we are separate entities goes deeper than this. The soul, when it is structured by the ego, has the shape of the body in our consciousness, whether or not we are aware of it. When it is not structured by the ego, you might experience the soul as having a jelly-like, plasmatic form, yet still experience it as a separate entity which, in fact, it is not. It is more accurate to talk about the soul current or soul flow than to call it a soul, since that makes it sound like a separate entity. It is more like a wave being formed by the constant movement of the currents, inseparable from the ocean out of which it arises. (Facets of Unity, pg 104)