In this online course we will explore the contemporary spiritual path known as the Diamond Approach.
Unlike paths that focus on only one or a few different aspects of our spiritual nature, the Diamond Approach works from the lived understanding that our nature has a multitude of different facets, from true confidence and peace, to brilliant intelligence and sparkling joy, to the many kinds of love that can suffuse our hearts.
During the course you will see how your own, immediate experience—no matter what it is—can be either a barrier or a doorway to the depths of who and what you are–including all these facets of your true nature.
You’ll engage with three practices–meditation practice, sensing practice, and the practice of Inquiry—which will empower you to explore the historical conditioning and beliefs that have caused you to lose connection with your underlying vitality and constricted your awareness of your connection with all of reality.
Why take this course
Deep down, you long to feel love, joy, peace, authenticity, pleasure, passion, trust, and gratitude.
But if you’re like most of us, you often avoid your direct experience because it can be painful, which also shuts the door to what it is you most yearn for.
The Diamond Approach offers powerful techniques for sensing into and being present with your everyday experience—everything from the painful to the sublime—which develops your capacity to embrace all of your experiences, leading to a profound transformation in how you understand yourself and how you show up in the world.
As you open the door to the deeper qualities that you long for, you also learn to live more authentically—as your deepest, truest self. You can find more fulfillment and peacefulness within yourself, actualize more of your potential, and contribute more to humanity and good relationships with others.
Ultimately, you can begin to feel less separate, alone, confused, or constricted, and tap into the truth that you are an evolving being with endless possibilities.
This course explores
- Why we tend to avoid our direct experience of life
- Why practicing being present to, and sensing, our experience allows us access to deeper qualities of being such as vitality, joy, and strength
- How when we openly and precisely experience our everyday feelings, sensations, and thoughts, they can become doorways to different qualities of being
- How our identity can shift from its ordinary experience as a separate self to one that is constantly evolving with unlimited possibilities
- How there is no destination to our journey—that where we are right now is the doorway to our unfolding and awakening
- How every experience, every moment, is a “jumpgate” to all the possibilities of being, and beyond
This online course includes
- A video overview of the Diamond Approach by Diamond Approach founder, A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali)
- Six pre-recorded video teaching sessions; each session lasting approximately 30-45 minutes, with downloadable transcripts and audio files for each session
- Experiential exercises and practices to help you explore the content in your own life, including meditation practices, sensing exercises, inquiry explorations, journaling, and repeating questions
- Two live Question-and-Comment (Q&C) sessions with the course teachers where you can bring your questions and share about your experience. The 1-hour live Q&Cs take place on July 1st at 12pm PDT and July 20th at 10am PDT.
Optional live practice groups give you an opportunity to meet regularly with a small group of fellow spiritual seekers and an experienced Diamond Approach teacher to strengthen your self-understanding and to practice dropping in and exploring inquiry. These 8-session groups are a great way to build community. More details to come after you register for the course.
Note: All course materials will be made available to download to your computer for ease of use during the course, and you’ll be able to keep them for your permanent library as well, so you can return to them whenever you like.
Audience
The course is appropriate for those new to the Diamond Approach, as well as current students interested in supplementing their work.