How Essential Identity Grounds Real Inquiry
In every spiritual tradition, a form of witnessing awareness emerges: the Atman, the Rigpa, the spark of the soul, the Tao, or the silent observer. Some call it “I AM,” others deny it altogether—yet almost all agree: something is aware – or awareness is. Something knows. And in the Diamond Approach®, that something is not merely conceptual, metaphorical, or mythical. It is direct, experiential, and phenomenologically precise. It is the Point Diamond.
Just as the Diamond Guidance is the messenger of truth—the angel of revelation—the Point Diamond is the center of gravity of being. It is not what delivers the message. It is what allows you to receive it. Where the Guidance opens the aperture of perception, the Point holds it steady.
You could call the Point Diamond the inner axis of spiritual inquiry. However, it is more accurate to say that the Point Diamond is the one who inquires.
A Vehicle of Identity
In the Diamond Approach, the Point Diamond is not a metaphor. It is a specific, knowable structure of Being—a faceted point of radiant identity. Its experience is phenomenologically distinct from other states of presence. It is not flowing, textured, or diffused. It is sharp, clear, condensed. It appears as a brilliant singularity of awareness—a direct recognition of “I Am” that is not derived from thought, feeling, or history.
“You recognize yourself by simply being yourself—
not by thinking about yourself, not by remembering yourself, but by being.”
A.H. Almaas
While other essential aspects express qualities such as love, clarity, strength, or joy, the Point expresses identity. Not personality. Not ego. Not a story. But identity as Being.
When present, the Point is experienced as:
- Concentrated clarity—a pinprick of luminous precision
- Silent certainty—the unshakable knowing of one’s realness
- Non-conceptual orientation—a vertical axis around which inquiry stabilizes
It is not discovered through transcendence, but by turning toward the immediacy of one’s own being.
The Point Across Traditions
Every major tradition hints at something akin to the Point:
- Advaita Vedanta refers to it as Atman—the innermost self, identical with Brahman.
- Sufism declares that only God truly says “I AM.” Through fana, the self is annihilated in divine presence.
- Christian mystics speak of the “spark of the soul” that is untouched by sin or time.
- Dzogchen Buddhism refers to it as Rigpa—primordial awareness that transcends subject and object.
- Taoism hints through wu wei—a spontaneous movement grounded in a silent source.
Each tradition struggles with the same paradox: the thing that is not a thing, the self that is not personal, the awareness that cannot be objectified. The Diamond Approach does not resolve this paradox conceptually. It invites direct contact.
And in that contact, the Point Diamond appears.
The Function of Orientation
Inquiry without the Point is like a compass without a needle. You may have questions, but no center. The Point gives orientation—not toward answers, but toward realness.
It doesn’t ask, “What is true?” It silently asserts, “I am here.” And from that here-ness, truth begins to reveal itself.
In the methodology of the Diamond Approach, the Point:
- Centers the soul in Being, so inquiry doesn’t drift into speculation
- Stabilizes presence, so curiosity remains alive even in uncertainty
- Clarifies identity, not as a persona, but as pure immediacy
The Point doesn’t guide. It doesn’t interpret. It makes it possible to stay with what is.
This is why it is foundational. Not flashy. Not dramatic. But indispensable.
Not a State. Not a Role. A Reality.
The Point Diamond is not a role you inhabit or a state you achieve. It is an ontological reality. When it appears, you don’t feel like “you got somewhere.” You feel like you’re finally home—in the simplest, barest, most precise sense.
It is not about specialness. In fact, the Point often reveals how deeply you’ve been mistaking specialness for presence. When the Point is present:
- You are not your feelings, but you feel
- You are not your thoughts, but you see them
- You are not your past, but you know you exist
“The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”
Meister Eckhart
The Point is the place where existence knows itself as existing—before language, before interpretation, before self-image.
It does not need a reason. It is reason’s ground.
How the Point Appears
The Point does not arrive because you invoked it. It does not answer questions. It is the bare simplicity from which real questions arise.
It appears when you turn toward what is, not conceptually, but phenomenologically. When you:
- Stay with your experience without collapsing into it
- Let go of controlling or fixing what arises
- Bring sincere curiosity to what you are feeling, sensing, or struggling with
Then, slowly or suddenly, a shift occurs. Attention becomes more vertical. The moment sharpens. Something inside says, “This is me.” Not the personality. Not the ego. But the presence that underlies experience.
Not a Witness, but Witnessing Itself
Unlike many traditions that describe the witness as a kind of internal observer, the Point is not separate from experience. It is not “watching”. It is. It is awareness knowing itself as the event of presence.
You are not looking at yourself. You are not detached from what arises. Rather, you are precisely where presence meets reality. The Point does not pull you out of life. It places you deeper inside it—without losing yourself to it.
“You are not what you know. You are the knowing itself.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj
You do not use the Point. You return to it. And eventually, you realize: you are it.
The Point and the Guidance
Where the Diamond Guidance is the function of revelation, the Point is the function of isness.
The Guidance discerns. The Point is.
The Guidance reveals meaning. The Point anchors experience.
The Guidance moves. The Point abides.
In spiritual inquiry, the Point Diamond is what makes it possible to begin. Not because you’re ready. But because reality is activating you.
Together, the Point and the Guidance form the vertical axis of the Diamond Approach:
- The Point grounds the inquiry in presence
- The Guidance reveals what presence contains
Without the Point, inquiry is mental. Without the Guidance, inquiry is mute. Together, they become revelation through direct contact.
This Is Where You Begin
Spiritual inquiry does not start with a question. It starts with contact. With being. With presence. With the simple but radical willingness to be exactly where you are. Bliss. Confusion. Numbness. Yearning. Wherever you are, the Point is already there—like the still flame at the center of a candle you didn’t know was lit.
Let inquiry begin from there.
Let the Point speak without words.
Let truth unfold—not from effort, but from contact.
Because when you are truly here, the truth knows how to find you.
John Harper is a Diamond Approach® teacher, Enneagram guide, and a student of human development whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. He is the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.