A. H. Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali, founder of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization, a contemporary teaching that developed within the context of both ancient spiritual teachings and modern depth psychology theories. Almaas has authored eighteen books about spiritual realization, including the Diamond Heart series, The Pearl Beyond Price, The Void, and The Alchemy of Freedom.
He is the founder of the Ridhwan School for Spiritual Development, an inner work school devoted to the realization of True Nature. The orientation of the school is directed toward guiding students to realize their true nature to the fullest realization and further still to endless enlightenment.
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At some point, however, you come to the recognition of what we call “essential truth.” Essential truth is not an insight about something but the apprehending of the immediate reality of the moment. This immediate reality is presence—the quality of beingness—as when one is experiencing an essential aspect, such as Compassion or Strength. We find out here that one of the most important characteristics of essential presence is that it is self-aware consciousness.
In Absence one experiences oneself to be a pure subject, that is not an object. One is the source of awareness. One is not the witness, not the witnessing, not the witnessed. One recognizes oneself as an Absence, unknown and unknowable. When one looks inward there is no perception; there is absolute Absence without consciousness of Absence, because Absence is not an object of perception. It is in fact the absence of an object of perception. When one looks at phenomena one observes functioning. There is absolutely no self-consciousness, so there is complete spontaneity.