Over the past twenty-five years A. H. Almaas—widely recognized as a leader in integrating spirituality and psychology—has been developing and teaching the Diamond Approach, a spiritual path that integrates the insights of Sufism, Buddhism, Gurdjieff, and other wisdom traditions with modern psychology. In this new work, Almaas uses the metaphor of a "spacecruiser" to describe a method of exploring the immediacy of personal experience—a way of investigating our moment-by-moment feelings, thoughts, reactions, and behaviors through a process of open-ended questioning. The method is called the practice of inquiry, and Spacecruiser Inquiry reveals what it means to engage with this practice as a spiritual path: its principles, challenges, and rewards. The author explores basic elements of inquiry, including the open-ended attitude, the focus on direct knowledge, the experience of not-knowing, and the process of questioning. He describes the experience of "Diamond Guidance"—the inner wisdom that emerges from our true nature—and how it can be realized and applied. In this process Almaas looks at many of the essential forms of Diamond Guidance, including knowing, clarity, truth, love, intelligence, compassion, curiosity, courage, and determination. Also included are exercises and questions and answers from the original talks by Almaas on which the book is based.

Over the past twenty-five years A. H. Almaas—widely recognized as a leader in integrating spirituality and psychology—has been developing and teaching the Diamond Approach, a spiritual path that integrates the insights of Sufism, Buddhism, Gurdjieff, and other wisdom traditions with modern psychology. In this new work, Almaas uses the metaphor of a "spacecruiser" to describe a method of exploring the immediacy of personal experience—a way of investigating our moment-by-moment feelings, thoughts, reactions, and behaviors through a process of open-ended questioning. The method is called the practice of inquiry, and Spacecruiser Inquiry reveals what it means to engage with this practice as a spiritual path: its principles, challenges, and rewards. The author explores basic elements of inquiry, including the open-ended attitude, the focus on direct knowledge, the experience of not-knowing, and the process of questioning. He describes the experience of "Diamond Guidance"—the inner wisdom that emerges from our true nature—and how it can be realized and applied. In this process Almaas looks at many of the essential forms of Diamond Guidance, including knowing, clarity, truth, love, intelligence, compassion, curiosity, courage, and determination. Also included are exercises and questions and answers from the original talks by Almaas on which the book is based.

The keys to self-knowledge and deep contentment are right here before us in this very moment—if we can simply learn to live with open awareness. In The Unfolding Now, A. H. Almaas presents a marvelously effective practice for developing the transformative quality of presence. Through a particular method of self-observation and contemplative exploration that he calls inquiry, we learn to live in the relaxed condition of simply "being ourselves," without interference from feelings of inadequacy, drivenness toward goals, struggling to figure things out, and rejecting experiences we don't want. Almaas explores the many obstacles that keep us from being present—including defensiveness, ignorance, desire, aggression, and self-hatred—and shows us how to welcome with curiosity and compassion whatever we are experiencing.

From one perspective, we can see ourselves merely as human beings struggling in a crowded and chaotic world of suffering. This book opens our eyes to a different reality, one that turns our familiar world inside out. We need only explore—with curiosity and love—our true potential as human beings in order to discover infinite depth and creativity in our lives as we act and interact in the world. When time and space expand their meaning, we come to know ourselves as having infinite dimensions of being and qualities of spirit, and uncover new mysteries about ourselves, one another, and the reality we live in. This is the last of the five-volume Diamond Heart series of transcribed and edited talks given by A. H. Almaas to inner-work groups in California and Colorado.

Cattoi and McDaniel present a selection of articles on the role of the body and the spiritual senses - our transfigured channels of sensory perceptions - in the context of spiritual practice. The volume investigates this theme across a variety of different religious traditions within Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism.

The founder of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization examines narcissism through a spiritual lens, presenting it as our greatest barrier to understanding our truest self In this book, the author explores the underlying spiritual understanding of narcissism. He presents a detailed map of the steps involved in working through barriers that prevent us from recognizing the most essential nature of our true identity. “Almaas is one of the most significant voices for a new and remarkably integrated spiritual vision. His work connects the personal, the universal, the psychological and the spiritual not as pieces put together, but as the inseparable mandala of the sacred that we are. I respect his work to the highest degree and commend it to anyone interested in living the life of the spirit.” —Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

Intelligence is one of the defining characteristics of human beings: an inherent ability to respond to the world with awareness, knowledge, learning, and insight. Most considerations of human intelligence are based on the notion that intelligence is a product of brain functioning. A. H. Almaas introduces here a radically different viewpoint, one that recognizes an actual quality of consciousness as the source of intelligence. He calls this source the Brilliancy of our true nature. The presentation of his understanding of intelligence is followed by in-depth dialogues with his students on the various barriers to recognizing and embodying this essential quality. In particular, an unresolved relationship with one's father is found to shape the experience of Brilliancy. Using a Socratic method that draws upon techniques of body-centered, Gestalt, psychodynamic, and cognitive psychologies, Almaas helps participants work through their defenses and conflicts surrounding this issue and then, diverging from pychotherapeutic practice, guides them in discovering their own Brilliancy.