The Way of Love
Waking the Divine in the Human Heart
October 7-8 | November 4-5 | December 16-17
Coming Closer to Love
Love has and will always be a necessity for all living beings to thrive.
Yet so many of us go through life encountering barriers to it and struggling to find a lasting love that truly satisfies.
We wonder why the search for love—from parents, spouses, friends—never seems to end. We hear that love is in everything, but wonder how this can be amidst all the suffering in the world. We may even feel unlovable inside, our hearts closed or numb. Or perhaps we’ve had transcendent, nondual experiences of love, but struggle to integrate them in our daily lives.
The longing for love, the search for it, and the dissatisfaction we feel all arise out of a disconnection from divine love, the actual source of all love, and the deepest nature of reality and our being.
This disconnection happens naturally, both as we encounter painful experiences that close the heart and as our egos develop and we come to take ourselves to be separate individuals. We can, however, come back into contact with this essential part of ourselves and experience our wholeness once more.
Join us as Diamond Approach teacher, Zarina Maiwandi, and special guest, A.H. Almaas, lead a 3-part exploration of what love really is, the different ways it shows up in our human experience, and how we can move through inner obstacles to realize its full expression.
This live course is experiential in nature and offers a practical methodology for identifying and working through our psychological and cultural conditioning and historical wounds that create barriers to love, all with the support of a spiritual community.
During our time together, we will...
- Learn what love really is, what it is not, and explore the different flavors of love as it arises in the human heart
- Get in touch with what our feelings and patterns are around love, connection, passion, and relationship, and see the ways our history has shaped those patterns
- Engage in practices that help us move beyond the limitations of our patterns and address the issues of abandonment, fear, and pain that all humans face so we can open more fully to love
- See that confronting barriers to love is not always easy, but with curiosity, community support, and a heartfelt desire to know the truth, the journey is worthwhile and can show us unimaginable beauty and freedom
- Recognize that the world needs more hearts that are open and by healing our own separation from love, we help create a more loving world for all of humanity
“What might change for someone who comes into greater contact or realization of divine love is everything. Everything can change.”
What You’ll Receive When You Enroll...
Guided practices, teachings, experiential exercises, and the opportunity for questions and comments with the course teachers and a group of fellow spiritual explorers.
An invitation to all three live, online weekends led by Zarina Maiwandi and guest teacher, A.H. Almaas, that happen October 7-8, November 4-5, and December 16-17 from 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Pacific.
Recordings of each weekend so you can review the material if you are unable to attend live.
Here’s What You’ll Explore in the Course
Divine Love & the Human Heart
October 7-8, 2023
The opening weekend introduces the concept of divine or nondual love and its relationship to the human heart. We’ll explore this fundamental source of love that is expressed through our hearts in many flavors and learn how we can work through personal barriers to reconnect with it. Through a series of teachings, practices, and experiential exercises, you’ll discover what love’s presence actually feels like, what stands in the way in your own life, and how you can move through those blocks to experience directly a oneness of love that challenges our ideas of separateness and helps us know a sense of bliss and that all is well.
Pink & Merging Gold Love
November 4-5, 2023
The second weekend explores two distinct expressions of love as they are experienced in the human heart. We will first look at pink love, a luscious, innocent love that is the feeling of soft, appreciative care, liking, and pleasantness of being with another. We then move into merging gold love, a form of love that draws you near into feelings of deep intimacy with life itself and shows the boundless nature of the cosmos in a very personal way by softening the edges of separateness and opening us to the essence of connection to ourselves and others. With both of these aspects of love, we will again look deeply into any blocks we may be facing and learn ways to unlock their full expression.
Passionate & Boundless Love
December 16-17, 2023
In the final weekend, we’ll explore a third facet of love as well as revisiting the underlying unity of divine love. We first explore the expression of passionate love, that gives us a vigorous lust for life and the power to move the heart fearlessly toward what we love, whether that is an individual, ideals, work, purpose, God, or True Nature. We will use guided practices to identify our personal obstacles to experiencing this love and discover how we can move through them. We then close by taking what we’ve learned about these specific qualities of love and our relationship to them, and integrate this by tracing the connection back to the source of love, that inner, shoreless ocean of benevolence that helps us know the fundamental goodness of our nature.
Meet Your Teachers
Zarina Maiwandi
Zarina Maiwandi has been a student of the Diamond Approach since 1999 and a teacher since 2015, working with groups in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan just before the Soviet occupation in 1979, her family fled to Pakistan and subsequently received political asylum in the U.S. Zarina graduated summa cum laude in literature and politics at New York University and completed a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She also edits books, including several written by A. H. Almaas.
A.H. Almaas
A.H. Almaas (pen name for Hameed Ali) is the founder of the Diamond Approach, a contemporary teaching that developed within the context of both ancient spiritual teachings and modern depth psychology theories. He has authored more than twenty books on spiritual realization including The Journey of Spiritual Love series, Keys to the Enneagram, the Diamond Heart series, The Pearl Beyond Price, and The Alchemy of Freedom. He is the founder of the Ridhwan School for Spiritual Development, an inner work school devoted to guiding students in the realization of their true spiritual nature.
FAQ
What is the Ridhwan School?
“Ridhwan” is a Sufi word. It means “satisfied and satisfying.” Our school, home to more than 4,000 students across the globe, has the potential to both help you to be fulfilled and to help others be fulfilled. Students learn to ground, sensitize, recognize, and trust the inherent guidance of Being.
What is the Diamond Approach?
The Diamond Approach is the core teaching of the Ridhwan School, a spiritual path that approaches our ordinary experiences, emotions, and sensations in a friendly way of understanding. This radical acceptance of our situation allows something to come through that puts us in touch with our spirituality.
In the Diamond Approach, everything we experience is utilized as a doorway to our spiritual nature. Rather than negating or seeking to transcend parts of our humanness that are considered barriers to realization, we learn to approach each aspect of our physical, emotional, and mental experience with acceptance and open curiosity to discover its truth. We do meditation and other exercises, but the main method is Diamond Inquiry™: non-judgment of what we’re experiencing, which brings crisp clarity into one’s own truth.
What’s included in the program?
When you register for the program, you’ll receive admission to all three live, weekend events in the course that happen October 7-8, November 4-5, and December 16-17 from 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Pacific. You’ll participate in teachings, guided practices, experiential exercises, and have the opportunity to interact with the teachers and learn from other participants during the questions and comments time.
How late can I sign up for the course?
Registration will remain open until AFTER the first course weekend that happens October 7-8, 2023.
Are the sessions live or pre-recorded? What happens if I miss one?
This is a series of three live, online workshops and you are welcome to attend as many as you like. You will receive access to recordings of each workshop if you are unable to attend live.
I am a Diamond Approach student and these course dates conflict with my group teaching dates. What do I do?
With a global student body and teachings taking place all over the world, it is, unfortunately, not possible to work around all of the potential date conflicts. If this topic is of interest to you, you are welcome to enroll and you will receive recordings of each teaching in case you need to miss one.
Will you be mailing anything to me or is everything digital?
Once payment is received you will receive an email with your login details, then you are officially in! You will receive everything in your email inbox, including instructions on how to access the course.
Do you offer financial assistance such as scholarships for online courses?
Yes! To apply for financial assistance for any of our courses, click here to complete a scholarship application. Scholarship applications for this series need to be received by Monday, October 2, 2023, and scholarship awards will be sent via email by Friday, October 6, 2023.
What if I have questions?
We’re here to support you on your journey and help with any questions you may have about enrolling and accessing the course. For support please email daosupport@ridhwan.org. Be sure to add this address to your contact list so we don’t end up in your Junk/Spam/Promotions folder. But please check there just in case!
Is there a refund policy?
Yes. If you are dissatisfied with the course —for any reason—simply contact us for a refund within 30 days of purchase.
Are You Ready to Explore The Way of Love?
Choose a Payment Option That is Right for You
Standard Tuition
Standard tuition is $270.
Reduced Tuition
In order to make online spiritual support more accessible to our global community, we also offer a reduced tuition option of $180 for anyone who needs it.
"Pay It Forward" Tuition
For those who are able to help, you can “Pay It Forward” by selecting the $360 tuition option and those additional funds go directly to provide scholarship opportunities for others.
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