A. H. Almaas [Almaas - The Pearl Beyond Price: Integration of Personality into Being, an Object Relations Approach

The work that you have in your hands is quite extraordinary in that it unfolds a comprehensive theory of personality grounded in a dimension of Being beyond our normal understandings of ego and identity. For here a knowledge of the spiritual path of transformation appears within, and is conjoined to, the modern context of western psychological process. Anyone with knowledge of the sacred psychologies at the heart of the worlds religious traditions will immediately recognize the significance of this major work by A. H. Almaas.

Larry Spiro, Ph.D.

A masterpiece of integration of both the spiritual and psychotherapeutic traditions, which is essential material for anyone concerned with helping others to develop a deeper sense of personhood or to liberate themselves from the repetition-compulsion to suffer that defines the neurotic condition.

David Boadella

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this book Almaas demonstrates that healthy ego development is part of the continuum of spiritual development. He also establishes the possibility of attaining inner realization and developing our essential beingthe pearl beyond pricein the context of living a normal human life.

A. H. ALMAAS is the pen name of Hameed Ali, the Kuwaiti-born originator of the Diamond Approach, who has been guiding individuals and groups in Colorado, California, and Europe since 1976. He is the author of Spacecruiser Inquiry, The Unfolding Now, and other books.

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DIAMOND MIND SERIES: II

The PEARL BEYOND PRICE

Integration of Personality into Being: An Object Relations Approach

A. H. Almaas

Shambhala

Boston & London

2013

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

1988 by A-Hameed Ali

Published by arrangement with Diamond Books

Cover art: Statue of David from The Sculpture of Michelangelo by Umberto Baldini.

Photography by Liberto Perugi, Rizzoli: Milan, Italy 1982.

Cover design: Chris Mol

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For permission to reprint excerpts, the author is grateful to: Beshara Publications for The Kernel of the Kernel, Ibn Arabi, Muhyddin, 1981 and for Universal Man, al-Jili, Abd al-Karim, 1983: International Universities Press, Inc. for Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations, and the Self, Guntrip, Harry, 1969, for The Self and the Object World, Jacobson, Edith, 1980: The Hogarth Press and the estate of the author for Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations, and the Self, Guntrip, Harry, 1969: Jason Aronson Inc. for Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis, Kernberg, Otto F., 1976; The Acorn Press and Chetana Private Limited for I Am That, Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta, 1981; Basic Books, Inc., for The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, Mahler, Margaret S., et al., 1975 by Margaret S. Mahler, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. for In Search of the Miraculous, Ouspensky, P. D., 1949 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., renewed 1977 by Tatiana Nagro; Shambhala Publications, Inc. (300 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA 02115) for The Experience of No-Self, Roberts, Bernadette, 1982; Jonathan Cape Ltd. for The Thinkers of the East, Shah, Idries, 1971, William Morrow & Company, Inc. for The Hollow Hills, Stewart, Mary, 1973; Princeton University Press for The King and the Corpse, Zimmer, Heinrich, ed. Campbell, Joseph, Bollingen Series XL, 1948, 1957, 1975 renewed by Princeton University Press; Columbia University Press for Ego Psychology: Theory and Practice, Blanck, Gertrude and Rubin, 1974.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Almaas, A. H.

The pearl beyond price: integration of personality into being: an object relations approach / A.H. Almaas.

p. cm.

Originally published: Berkeley, CA: Diamond Books, 1998, in series: Diamond mind series.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2499-7

ISBN 0-936713-02-X (alk. paper)

1. Self-realization. 2. Personality 3. Self 4. Spiritual life 5. Object relations (Psychoanalysis) 6. Transpersonal psychology I. Title

BF637.S4 A58 2000

INTRODUCTION

to the Diamond Mind Series

The Pearl Beyond Price is the second volume of the Diamond Mind Series. This series is a systematic presentation of a particular body of knowledge, which we call Diamond Mind, and its corresponding modus operandi, a way of working with people toward inner realization, which we call the Diamond Approach. The presentation is somewhat technical, and hence will be useful to psychologists, psychotherapists, educators and spiritual teachers, but is also accessible to the educated reader. This work is a response to an important need that is being felt in many quarters, a need for a spiritually informed psychology, or conversely for a psychologically grounded spirituality. This perspective does not separate psychological and spiritual experience, and hence sees no dichotomy between depth psychology and spiritual work. Through a creative critique and investigation, this system takes some of the elements of depth psychology, particularly those of ego psychology and object relations theory, and extends them into realms of the human psyche which are usually considered the domain of religion, spirituality and metaphysics.

This body of knowledge is not an integration or synthesis of modern depth psychology and traditional spiritual understanding. The inclination to think in terms of integration of the two is due to the prevailing belief in the dichotomy between the fields of psychology and spirituality, a dichotomy in which the Diamond Mind understanding does not participate.

The Diamond Mind knowledge is a multifaceted understanding of the nature of man, his consciousness or psyche, and the potential for expansion of his capacity for experience and inner development. These several points regarding the nature of this understanding will help to place it in context:

1. This knowledge includes an understanding of normal psychological functioning which also sheds light on some prevalent menial disorders. It adopts many of the findings of modern depth psychology, situating them in a more comprehensive view of man and also establishing their relevance for the pursuit of deeper truths about human nature beyond the levels psychology generally penetrates.

2. The psychological understanding is set within a metapsychological perspective that includes a broad outline of the domains of experience and functioning of the human psyche or soul. This meta-psychology is not spelled out in any one of the volumes of the series, but is gradually developed throughout its several books.

3. This metapsychology is in turn set within a metaphysical outlook in which psychological experience is situated within a phenomenology of Being.

4. This work demonstrates that what is usually considered psychological investigation can arrive at dimensions of experience which have always been considered to be the product of spiritual practice or discipline. The psychological work is seen here not as an adjunct to spiritual practice, but as a spiritual practice on its own. This is the specific contribution of the Diamond Mind body of knowledge which prompted the idea of this series.