The Deep Interplay of Psychology and Spirituality: Insights from Almaas

Unraveling the Psyche: The Interplay of Psychology and Spirituality

Dive into the intricate relationship between psychology and spirituality, and explore how the Diamond Approach offers a comprehensive perspective on this union.

4 Insights: how psychology serves the spiritual seeker

“Psychology is a bunch of crap”  –  John Harper 1950 – 1990
“Whoa! This is interesting”  –  John Harper 1990 –

What took me from crap to whoa? The teachings of A. H. Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach to Self-realization.

Here are four of many eye-openers on my journey from crap to whoa:

Using Object Relations Theory to Unravel the Past

The Diamond Approach, founded by A. H. Almaas, uniquely combines the principles of psychology and spirituality, offering a holistic path to self-realization and understanding

I grew up under the influence of “real men” – John Wayne, James Bond, Henry Harper (father)… Don’t be a wuss, cowboy up, get over it, move on. As you might guess, beneath all of that messaging of how to become, was uncertainty and vulnerability.

“Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is what is written in their hearts. That is what little boys play at. That is what men’s movies are about. You just see it. It is undeniable.” John Eldredge

Concluding that the personal self could not be some kind of aberration, Ali delved more deeply into the nature of the ego, seeking to understand it in a way that gave it meaning without contradicting timeless spiritual perspectives. Drawing upon the insights of developmental psychology, a field that includes object relations and self, depth, and ego psychologies, he studied how the ego develops during early childhood. Recognizing that this knowledge about the origins of human individuality had never before existed until this century, he saw it as a kind of missing link in spiritual unfoldment. At the same time, because psychology omitted the transcendent dimension of experience, it could take a person only as far as the limits of individual development, but no farther. Thus like the founder of analytical psychology, Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung; the founder of psychosynthesis, Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli; and other transpersonal theorists, Ali sought to bring together the spiritual and the psychological in one unified discipline. He has perhaps succeeded in this task in a more practical way than those who preceded him. As the noted transpersonal writer and thinker Ken Wilber writes in Eye of Spirit, Ali’s unique method, known as “The Diamond Approach,” combines “some of the best of modern Western psychology with ancient (and spiritual) wisdom … uniting … spiritual and psychological into a coherent and effective form of inner work.”   –  Interview: At the Cutting Edge of Using Psychological Concepts in Soul Work is Spiritual Teacher Hameed Ali by Pythia Peay [ from Common Boundary Magazine, 1999 ]

80/20 Enneagram Epiphany

Fellow students of the Diamond Approach introduced me to the enneagram. It took a little time and several books before I identified my type (8). The realization came when I stopped looking at the characteristics and looked at the movement under stress and there it was – 80% of my life, 8 to 5, which is a type of schizoid defense for me – emotionally overwhelmed? check out until I get things figured out and then ‘back with a vengeance.” The enneagram increased my curiosity in personality and the self as a pattern of psychological defense.

As our work, the Diamond Approach, developed, we observed that one’s self-understanding can be simply and systematically organized with the help of the Enneagram. This enabled us to understand some of the Enneagrams in a new and sometimes deeper way, and also led to the formulation of new Enneagrams. Our understanding of the Enneagram, then, is the product of experiential integration of the commonly understood body of knowledge of the Enneagram, learned primarily from Naranjo, along with our own discoveries. The transmitted view is that the Enneagram knowledge is an objective knowledge of reality. We find this to be true. We understand the objectivity of the Enneagram to mean, among other things, that it can be perceived directly by anyone with the necessary capacity, who inquires effectively into the nature of reality. And since it is a true model of reality, one cannot exhaust its knowledge. Knowledge of reality is both unlimited and inexhaustible: Each teaching has a specific way of describing reality and none of these ways exhausts all possible experience. The Enneagram is a structure which facilitates the revelation of truth about Being and about human beings as part of this Being. We view the present book as a new contribution to the knowledge of the Enneagram. – Facets of Unity, pg. 5

My Gray World Exposed by the Central Object Relation

At a Diamond Approach retreat, I was introduced to the central object relation, a concept deeply rooted in the fusion of psychology and spirituality. This blend of disciplines shed light on my hidden gray world, revealing layers of understanding about the self.

The process of working through the primitive structures of the animal soul and the soul child requires that all three object relations be understood all the way to the clear, embodied experience and understanding of essential aspects related to them. We have not discussed the process of working through the central object relation, but this is the main structure that the inner work of the Diamond Approach addresses. To work through it means to render transparent its constituent self-images, which entails dealing with all the major ego structures. – The Inner Journey Home, pg. 210

A New Earth for the Inner Child

While reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, I had a vivid interaction with my inner child, further deepening my understanding of the bond between psychology and spirituality. This emotionally powerful structure, deep in the psyche, is driving and controlling much of our reactivity and behavior. It’s responsible for that sense of: will he or she ever grow up? A profound state of compassion arose in me leading me to take this child’s hand and let him know that we would walk together into the future sharing our fears and dreams, knowledge, and insights. He has taught me much.

At the beginning the child seems to have a significance. This is not a mental or inferred significance. The identity of the child is not dependent on something external. Children are real, true to themselves. They have a connectedness, a oneness, rather than disharmony. The child is one entity, responding and reacting and behaving as a whole, not as this part and then that part. That happens later. There isn’t even a distinction between Essence and personality. The child is simply one beingness. As the child grows older, this unity of experience is lost. – Diamond Heart Book Three, pg. 43

The artificial separation of psychology and spirituality creates a type of castration in our psyche.

The etymology of the Greek word ψυχή (psyche) was “life.” Derived meanings included “spirit”, “soul”, “ghost”, and ultimately “self” in the sense of “conscious personality” or “psyche“.

So psyche is the whole of “us” as a manifested individual, the subjective personal self. It makes sense that our journey of self-discovery recognizes the psychological and the spiritual as part and parcel of the human being’s journey home.

The journey of self-discovery is enriched when we embrace both psychology and spirituality. Through the teachings of Almaas and the Diamond Approach, we can navigate this path with clarity, bridging the gap between the mind and the soul.