How we work
A. H. Almaas, is the founder of the Diamond Approach to Psychospiritual Integration. Below is a quote from Diamond Heart Book One. It’s a collection of transcripts from classes he gave in the early seventies in Berkeley, CA, where he taught psychology–the first book of the dozens he has written. This paragraph from Chapter One gives us a taste of what working with object relations psychology is all about.
“We’re talking about being ‘in the world but not of it.’ All of us here live in the world and do what everybody else does: we wear clothes, eat food, go to the grocery store, have a job, make love, fight, everything. However, our focus is different. We do not identify with the part of us that eats, shops, works, and so on. We learn to develop the capacity to be aware of what is happening but not to identify with it; we develop what we call awareness and dis-identification. These are the most important things you need in order to do the work of understanding yourself. You have to be aware of what’s happening inside of you and outside of you. The world is seen as a big classroom; the situations are classes where you can develop certain aspects of yourself, certain aspects of your essence. The whole world is a big university offering many classes: classes on sex, classes on work, relationships, dependence and independence, and so on.”
And from Diamond Heart Book Two
“Sometimes emotional catharsis of one sort or another occurs as the conflicts that are blocking the student’s experience of himself are brought to consciousness. Unconscious material arises and is investigated, and this generally allows an expansion, or spaciousness in the student which in turn allows more subtle qualities to manifest. The fundamental attitude which governs how we work with students is what we call “allowing…” The process of learning this “allowing” attitude is in itself a loosening of the ego’s constraints, since it is in the nature of ego to reject present reality and focus on its fears or desires.”
When you work with Morgan, you’ll learn that your ego structure (personality) is simply a complex collection of patterns learned through evolution of the species, through growing up in society or in your family of origin. You’ll learn you can choose which patterns or habits of mind to keep and which to let go to choose to live a happier, more real life in the present moment.
