Head, Heart and the Process of Understanding

The prompting to pen this came from a recent question posted on Facebook:

Does the Diamond Approach’s focus on psychology and the issues of the personality feel overly-emphasized?

This led to thoughts along tangential threads of discussion – Is the Diamond Approach too head oriented? Does the Diamond Approach (DA) lack heart? And similar questions I have heard voiced over the 26 years I have been a student of the DA.

I think these these two threads and others like them arise, in part, as a result of of the DA’s use of open-ended Inquiry and psychodynamic exploration in service of liberating the soul from its identification with history and ego structure.

To begin, let me say clearly that these are my thoughts at present. They will most likely evolve over time, perhaps before the last line is written on this page.

It is important to notice that part of the process of realization of Pure Being is the metabolism of some object relations. This means psychodynamic and structural work can lead to this dimension of experience. This is usually completely ignored by spiritual teachings, which makes the realization of this dimension difficult and extremely rare. We see here that a large part of the barrier against this dimension of Being is the existence of nonmetabolized past object relations. Most spiritual teachings focus on the existential and epistemological barriers, which are only some of the relevant issues. In the Diamond Approach, we see that consideration of the psychodynamic and structural issues is very helpful in realizing these deep aspects of Being, and integrating them in a deep personal way. The Pearl Beyond Price – A. H. Almaas

Gurdjieff referred to man as a 3-center being – head, heart and body. This concept serves us in the DA in helping to discriminate and open up experience of the self.

Gurdjieff spoke of humans as “three-brained” beings, possessing three separate “centers” — the physical, emotional, and intellectual centers. In most people, who are seen as still “asleep,” these three centers work at odds with each other, out of harmony, interfering with the individual’s possibilities for higher development.

Humans, and particularly those of us raised in the Western world, seem to have more dominant head centers – most likely as a result of living more and more in a conceptual world view with more and more information flooding us and an idealized sense of being an individual with control and choice.

It is little wonder then that many, at first, view inquiry as a head-centered activity and process. Isn’t it? The short answer vis-a-vis the Diamond Approach is no. Inquiry is a 3-center process and later, as we mature in our understanding and capacities, it is a 4-center process and eventually can be a no-center process.

When you are inquiring, it is important to keep sensing your body—to stay in direct touch with its movements and sensations. This includes the numbness, the dullness, or the tensions you may feel. To ground your awareness in your bodily experience is important because your essential qualities are going to arise in the same place where you experience your feelings, emotions, and reactions. They are not going to appear above your head, they are going to arise within you. So your body is actually your entry into the mystery.  Spacecruiser Inquiry – A. H. Almaas

Most people come to the DA or any spiritual path for one of two reasons:

1. The vast majority are dissatisfied or suffering in their current circumstances and seeking something more expansive.
2. Some are simply drawn by some unknown force or have had some kind of primary awakening that radically shifts their world view.

What one discovers, sooner or later, is that the dynamism underlying both of these is love. One quality or function of love is it calls us to know ourselves and reality as deeply and intimately as possible. In fact, it calls us beyond knowing and being to the soul’s deepest longing – absolute absence, but that is another story.

For many, at first, it is difficult to see, much less, experience this functioning of love, though most are quick to acknowledge this conceptually or intellectually. To actually experience it immediately and completely is beyond challenging for the normal self – it is impossible as it dissolves that self. That self’s desire to be central to the “enlightened life” is problematic.

Inquiry serves the heart and soul by opening up our experience and consciousness in a manner that is unique to our personal structuring, attuned to our process and at a rate that is optimal for our developing capacities.

So, inquiry and psychodynamic work help to open the doors, create space, and let the light in for more heart to emerge in our experience.

Where many, if not most of us face challenge is our deep addiction/need/reliance on conceptualizing experience for understanding. It’s what the mind does, but the identification with the mind and this process is the great challenge for spiritual seekers – knowing knowing beyond concepts. Knowing knowing as experiential being and awareness. The mind really doesn’t get this. It’s concepts of this are simply insignificant until it is transformed by experience – and the transformation is not fundamentally dependent upon 1 or 100 or 1000 spiritual/essential experiences.

Let’s look at how inquiry helps to open and nurture the heart on the Journey of ascent.

In this journey of ascent, the process has been primarily that of discrimination, separation, purification and resolution. Her (the soul) nature reveals itself as more simpler, more subtle, and increasingly devoid of forms, qualities, determinations, and concepts.  Inner Journey Home – A. H. Almaas

We begin the journey of ascent within the world of ego and personality. Some fundamental elements of ego structure are:

• Object Relations & Self-Image
• Identifications & Fixations
• Ego Ideal & Superego
• Reactivity & Defense Mechanisms

Each of these elements limit our understanding of love and the capacity of our heart.. Understanding these ego elements assists us in developing our skill for inquiry, but can also support the tendency to intellectualize inquiry – a two-edged sword.

As we work with the soul, two significant issues involving heart arise – innocence and vulnerability. For most of us, the exploration of these brings up a great deal of inquiry involving all the aspects of ego structure. In fact, a goodly portion of our journey, growth and understanding always engages these elements as ego beliefs, conditioning and resistance are challenged as we take each step and break new ground.

The exploration of innocence and vulnerability certainly holds the potential for more heart.

Two essential qualities that we work with early on in the DA have obvious connection to the heart center – green (compassion) and yellow (joy). The exploration of the red essence involves the heart as well around courage, passion and expansion.

Two of the “mother aspects” we explore on the journey of ascent are pink love and merging love – both are loaded with psychodynamic content for deep inquiry.

The work on the Pearl involes work on our capacity for contact, certainly an area calling forth a lot of heart work.

Working with the Stupa and the Water Chandelier, Diamond Vehicles, takes us deeper into the treasure of the heart.

Then there are the boundless dimensions and what do we usually engage first? Divine Love. The dimension of the Absolute brings us to the apex of the journey of ascent to the most subtle experiences of heart and love and the deepest longing of the soul.

In all of these inquiries heart is a central thread and open-ended inquiry is a primary component in our process of understanding.

The process of inner work has two threads: seeing the negative causes of suffering, and seeing the positive causes of suffering. The negative causes of suffering involve the negative experiences, often from childhood, that created suffering. What I call the positive cause of suffering is the actual blockage of our potential, our essence. The positive cause is the alienation from true reality. After a while the process of understanding involves these two threads working together. You understand personality, and you understand essence. You understand your history and you understand your nature. You understand your mind and you understand your beingness. These two threads are inherently intertwined in our work in the Diamond Approach.   Diamond Heart V: Inexhaustible Mystery – A. H. Almaas

In the journey of ascent, there are two to three dozen distinct explorations – some of which extend over many months of group exploration. Here I have mentioned a dozen that I see have a very direct connection to expanding our awareness, understanding and capacity of heart.

In reflecting on inquiry: the black lataifa, Brilliancy, Diamond Guidance, the Diamond Dome, the Supreme, The Nameless and the Logos – all have specific work that challenges and frees inquiry from being trapped in the head.

The function and service of inquiry is to take us deeper into the immediacy of our experience. Perhaps part of the answer to the question first raised is that we have reified inquiry, repeating questions and monologues. Perhaps we have settled into some kind of object relation with inquiry that needs to be inquired into!

For me, I think the question of whether or not the Diamond Approach is too focused on the psychological or psychodynamics or not enough heart has more to do with how much distance there is between me and the immediacy of my experience. Maybe it’s different for others.

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