Almaas - The Unfolding Now

Almaas is a genius at revealing both the core qualities of Essence and the veils that obscure it, always in language that helps peel away those veils, always holding open the door to the unfolding presence and awareness that remains when the veils have dissolved. The Unfolding Now leads the reader through a masterful series of inquiry processes, invitations to sense and know ourselves at increasing levels of subtlety, gently walking us deeper and deeper into Truth.

Sally Kempton (Durgananda), spiritual teacher and author of The Heart of Meditation: Pathways to a Deeper Experience

I love the unfolding Almaas! His clarity never diminishes, yet each book brings an increasing simplicity and gentleness. As I worked with this latest material, I felt like I was receiving a transmission of pure compassion. His strong, true voice reminds us that beyond the endless self-improvement projects and idealized mystical states with which the spiritual path is strewn lies the simple but exquisite taste of our own being.

Cynthia Bourgeault, author of Mystical Hope, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, and Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening

ABOUT THE BOOK

The keys to self-knowledge and deep contentment are right here before us in this very momentif 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 presentincluding defensiveness, ignorance, desire, aggression, and self-hatredand shows us how to welcome with curiosity and compassion whatever we are experiencing.

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 Spacecrusier Inquiry, The Pearl Beyond Price, Facets of Unity, and other books.

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THE UNFOLDING

NOW

Realizing Your True Nature

through the Practice of Presence

A. H. ALMAAS

SHAMBHALA

BOSTON & LONDON
2012

SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2008 by A-Hameed Ali

Cover photograph by Corey Kohn

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.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Almaas, A. H.

The unfolding now: realizing your true nature through the practice of presence / A. H. Almaas. 1st ed.

p. cm. (Diamond Body Series; 3) Includes index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2557-4

ISBN 978-1-59030-559-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Attention. 2. Self. I. Title.

BF321.A46 2008

153.75dc22

2007042699

Dedicated to all the students of the Diamond Approach:

BY LEARNING TO VALUE and appreciate experiencing, knowing, and accepting where you truly are, you give our human potential the opportunity to deepen and soar to heights that humanity greatly needs. It has always been an inspiration for me to see how, by sincerely following a genuine teaching, you provide an opening for reality to reveal its perfections and hence offer the world a glimpse of the harmony possible for it.

T HE HIDDEN RICHNESS THAT rests in our life, in our heart, in our experience is herenot over there, in some better life, in some other house, in some other career, in some other relationship or country or spiritual school. One time, perhaps, we actually knew thatand then we forgot. From time to time, we are reminded by others of that richness, or we rediscover it ourselves. But over and over, we forget.

When we lose touch with the fullness of who we really are, when we ourselves cannot recognize or appreciate it, when it is invisible to us or seems inaccessible, the knowledge that we are the location and source of what we are seeking is only abstract information, irrelevant to our personal situation. It cannot affect who we are or how we live if we cant find this richness in our immediate experience, cant feel it or taste it or sense it directly. In fact, what we find is that most everything in our life works against our turning that knowledge into the currency of personal inner richness.

Our beliefs about what will allow us to survive, or what can help us solve our problems, or what will make us happy, or even what will fulfill our desire to make a difference in the world all seem to point us away from here. We are always going somewhere, internally or externallyto the store, the movies, the beach, the office, the restaurant, the television, the Internet, the newspaper, the latest spiritual teacher to come to town, our partners, our children, our friends, our parents, our worries, our concerns, our fears, our hopes. And on and on. We are in motion, going after, seeking out, restless, never satisfied, never at peace.

This seems to be the central dilemma of human lifethat it is easier to desire what is over there than to appreciate what is right here. In fact, what is here seems to be so fundamentally inferior, less than, or inadequate compared to what is apparently over there, that it hardly seems worth the effort to look here. Why not just go over there?

Why, indeed? All spiritual paths, traditions, and schools have been attempting to answer that question for us for thousands of years. Each in their own way teaches that your spirit or your soulyour original unconditioned consciousnessexists only in you, so going elsewhere can never give you access to your essential nature, to who you really are. And the essence that is you is purported to be something quite magnificent: Your true spiritual nature is said to be full of love, peace, strength, beauty, joy, compassion, wisdom, and intelligence.

But even imagining yourself with this spiritual nature immediately conjures up the belief that you can only find these qualities somewhere else. After all, it is not what you experience in yourself now, right? Youre not there... yet. Spiritual paths and techniques thus become ways of getting thereto the place where you feel real, where you will become all these wonderful things. So you meditate, attempting to empty your mind or calm yourself or focus on an image or let go of all attachment. Or you chant and dance to invoke your spirit. Or you say prayers and go on vision quests. Yet all these techniques of finding your deeper self subtly imply that where you are now in yourself is not where you need to be.

You are seeking some ideal of the spiritual self and using these methods to attempt to reach that. The result is that the spiritual search can evoke the same dilemma that all other aspects of your life do. Since you cannot feel anything essential or profound in your present experience, you must travel away from here to find what you are looking foreven if its your own True Nature.