Real Action, Being in Expression
In the Diamond Approach, “action” is understood as a manifestation of one’s true being or essence. When you are fully present in the moment, your actions are guided by presence, and they feel just right because they are in complete harmony with your being. This is described as the unfoldment of Being, where your actions are not separate from your existence but are a part of it.
When you are aligned with the universal will, your actions are the most correct and beneficial for everyone involved, including yourself. This is because your actions are in sync with the rest of existence. However, understanding this action of Being requires knowing and being in touch with Being.
Being knows how to do things with grace, power, and precision, but it does not know about specific tasks like fixing a window or watering plants. This is where your consciousness and personality come in. When you are performing these tasks, Being knows how to do it in the best way, integrating you within yourself.
Unity of action is when there is no separate individual action, but a continuous unfolding of reality as one unified fabric. This unified fabric is always unfolding in a pattern, and we discern some of these patterns and call them action or behavior.
Actions based on ambitions and ideals disconnect the soul from its innate dynamism. Such actions are inauthentic and a substitute for the real dynamism at the center of the essential self.
It’s not enough to just have an understanding or realization of Being. These insights need to be embodied in your actions, transforming your life.
When you are in the moment, being the presence that is unfolding, that unfoldment determines your actions, and your actions will feel just right, right to the point, because you are not separate from your Being and your action is completely unified with the presence itself. Your actions then are nothing but the unfoldment of Being. Since presence is everything and all of you, it is not as though you are moving your hand from here to there; presence is unfolding in this moment and in this moment and in this moment. The presence has unfolded like successive frames in a film. When this is your state, you feel like you are right on the mark, knowing what you are doing and where you are going. What happens within you and through your actions occurs spontaneously, naturally, effortlessly, because you are not separate from who you are. The moment you say, “I don’t want to go that way,” or “It would be better this way,” you are separating yourself from the presence that is unfolding. When you do that, your action does not have a sense of exactness or of appropriateness; it does not feel “on. – Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas, ch.15
Action based on ambitions and ideals disconnect the self from its innate dynamism. The activity is bound to be somewhat unauthentic, for regardless of how near the ideals and ambitions are to the actual condition of the self, they cannot be identical to its condition in the moment because they are based on structures most likely laid down in early childhood. In fact, activity based on ambitions and ideals is a kind of substitute activity, reflecting our inability to contact the real dynamism at the center of the self. – A. H. Almaas, The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization, pg. 88