Almaas A H - The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life

ABOUT THE BOOK

What do desire and passion have to do with our spiritual journey? According to A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson, they are an essential part of it.

Conventional wisdom cautions that desire and passion are opposed to the spiritual paththat engaging in desire will take you more into the world, into egoic life. And for most people, that is exactly what happens. We naturally tend to experience wanting in a self-centered way. The Power of Divine Eros challenges the view that the divine and the erotic are separate. When we open to the energy, aliveness, spontaneity, and zest of erotic love, we will find it inseparable from the realm of the holy and sacred. When this is understood, desire and passion become a gateway to wholeness and to realizing our full potential.

The authors reveal how our relationships become opportunities on the spiritual journey to express ourselves authentically, to relate with openness, and to discover dynamic inner realms with another person. Through embodying the energy of eros, each of us can learn to be fully real and alive in all of our interactions.

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 Pearl Beyond Price, Facets of Unity, and other books.

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The Power of Divine Eros

The Illuminating ForceofLove in Everyday Life

A. H. Almaas & Karen Johnson

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2013

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2013 A-Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson

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 power of divine eros: the illuminating force of love in everyday life / A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson.1st ed.

pages cm

Includes index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2913-8

ISBN 978-1-61180-083-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. LoveReligious aspectsRidhwan Foundation. 2. Spiritual lifeRidhwan Foundation. 3. Ridhwan FoundationDoctrines. I. Title.

BP605.R53A475 2013

204.4dc23

2013004112

Dedicated to my dear husband, Gregory, whose love of earth and spirit has enriched the love and life we share.

KAREN JOHNSON

Dedicated to my wife, Marie, with love and gratitude for her steady love, love of the truth, delight in life, and the support and space for me to pursue both my inner work and the work of birthing the teaching.

HAMEED ALI

Contents

Adagio molto expressivo from Beethovens Spring Sonata (Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, op. 24):

Niobes Theme from the album Rome: Music from the HBO Series (soundtrack CD by Jeff Beal):

The aria Ebben? Ne andr lontana from act 1 of Alfredo Catalanis opera La Wally (sung by Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez on the soundtrack CD of the movie Diva):

Niobes Theme and Cleopatra Seduces Caesar, from the album Rome: Music from the HBO Series (soundtrack CD by Jeff Beal):

Cleopatra Seduces Caesar, from the album Rome: Music from the HBO Series (soundtrack CD by Jeff Beal):

Noche Gaditana from the album Suite Andalouse by Pedro Soler and Renaud Garcia-Fons:

The book you are about to read will usher you into a mystical world hidden in the midst of your everyday life. Led by two intrepid spiritual explorers, this journey embarks from Amsterdam and arrives in the heart of the human soul. The particular quest is to discover the nature of divine erosthe source and the expression of the sublime animal and the sexy angel that lives within each of us. As it uncovers and addresses the age-old misunderstanding that our divine and our erotic natures are incompatible opposites, The Power of Divine Eros begins the process of delicious discovery of the reality that unites them.

A. H. Almaas (Hameed) and Karen Johnson have been colleagues and fellow travelers of the inner realms for more than thirty-five years. During this time, Hameed has articulated in more than a dozen books the spiritual path of inner realization called the Diamond Approach. This path has arisen mainly out of their joint exploration and is embodied in the Ridhwan School, a spiritual home for more than four thousand dedicated practitioners worldwide.

Since 2007, Hameed and Karen have taken their teaching on the road in the form of five-day workshops called Quasar Seminars, presenting the Diamond Approach work to new audiences in major cities in Europe and the United States. These public workshops provide the opportunity of direct engagement for seekers who cannot devote the time and energy to a more consistent participation in the Ridhwan School. Each year, Karen and Hameed choose a different city and a different topic that addresses the perennial hunger in the human soul for authentic depth and fundamental realness in personal experience.

The Quasar Seminar from 2008 gave birth to this book as a way to offer you, as a reader, the opportunity to discover some of the preciousness of what is possible for a human being living the experience of divine eros. In the process of reading this volume, you will learn specific practices that support the continuing development of the soul. In addition, those of you who are already following a particular path with its own practices might discover support for these practices through this teaching, specifically through learning how to inquire into your own experience.

Two things set The Power of Divine Eros apart from other Diamond Approach books. The first is Hameeds collaboration with Karen Johnson. Karens passionate and dynamic energy adds a new element to the presentation of this spiritual teaching. She speaks from the same source but with a different taste, a zesty flavor all her own. Their two voices are woven through the book and the teaching, bringing greater illumination and more sparkle to this juicy, evocative material. Hameed and Karen alternated teaching the segments, each of which has become a chapter in the volume, beginning with Hameed presenting the first one. In the session that appears in this book as the final chapter, they both led the discussion that brings the seminar to a close.

The second new element is the fact that The Power of Divine Eros presents a more immersive experience of the actual teaching process than any other book by Almaas. Several of his previous books are also based on live teachings, and they include question-and-answer interchanges with participants as well as exploration sessionsexercises modified so that as you read, you can actively engage with the teaching.

In addition, this book includes more of the elements that comprise the full seminar process: The first chapter provides a detailed description of the Kath meditation practice used throughout the seminar. In subsequent chapters, different chant and sound practices are presented. Music meditations were done several times in conjunction with the teaching, and we have specified the musical selections used so that you can listen to these if you like and further enhance your experience. And finally, you will learn a special form of dyadic exploration that you can do if you choose to engage the practices in this book with a friend.