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

 

Universal Mind

The totality of all that exists, with all this variation, is the Universal Mind or Nous. The Nous includes everything that exists in reality, with all the differentiations. It includes everything that can be perceived or experienced and anything that can be conceptualized. (Diamond Heart Book 4, pg 332)

 

universal mind, nous

 

We call it the Universal Mind because when we go beyond it, we see it as mind. But it is not mind as created by me personally. It’s the mind that actually exists as the totality of the Universe. Some people call it God’s mind. So from the level of the nonconceptual, the physical universe and Essence and all that exists are mind. They are concepts, like ideas or forms that are filled out with something. What they are filled out by is the nonconceptual, the original consciousness. (Diamond Heart Book 4, pg 343)

 

universal mind, nous

 

Universal mind and imagination

The imagination of the universal mind. It is not your own imagination. You are being imagined all the time, so is the chair and everything else, just like being a figure in a dream, and the figure in the dream believes he or she is real. Imagine you have a dream when you see people and one of those people believes that they are really real while they are being dreamed by you. Your situation is exactly like that. Exactly. This is what is referred to as the Universal Mind, or the Divine Mind. (Diamond Heart Book 4, pg 121)

 

universal mind, nous

 

The mind that knows is pure presence itself, which knows its own differentiations. It is the knowing of Being, the knowing of true existence, differentiated into the knowing of beings and existents. It knows through the soul, for it needs to be localized for there to be discriminated knowledge of forms. It provides the soul with her knowing faculty, with her mind and intellect, just as the dimension of divine love provides her with her heart and feelings. This means that it is not an individual soul that knows, although that is how things appear. When we know the boundless dimension of pure presence, which is the dimension of pure basic knowledge, we recognize that it is basic knowledge that knows. Basic knowledge is a dimension of true nature, and not limited to the individual soul. It operates through the soul; for the soul is the organ of perception, similar to how the eye is the organ of seeing for the body but it is not exactly the eye that sees. (Inner Journey Home, pg 315)