What are we seeking when we seek God or enlightenment?
What is True Nature?
Some refer to True Nature as God. Some see enlightenment as recognition, awareness, and abiding in God. When we are seeking God, we are seeking our deepest nature. When seeking enlightenment, we seek the state of recognizing and being in the experiential knowing of God or True Nature.
True Nature refers to the deepest, most authentic reality of existence. The fundamental essence of everything is the underlying reality that gives rise to and permeates all forms of existence. True Nature is not static or singular; it is dynamic and multifaceted, capable of manifesting in many ways. It can be experienced as a crystal or a stone, symbolizing the solidity and permanence of existence. It can also manifest as warm compassion, a tender force that connects us to others and drives us to act in service to them. True Nature can appear as a diamond-like form in the center of your forehead, symbolizing clarity and understanding, or as a platinum column along your spine, symbolizing support and selfhood. It can even appear as an apple in the hand of a Zen Master, symbolizing the totality of reality contained within a single object.
What is the nature of True Nature?
The nature of True Nature is a complex and paradoxical concept. True Nature can manifest as total spaciousness, total emptiness, no presence or light, nothing at all, challenging our conventional understanding of existence. It can appear as pure existence—solid, complete, and certain, like molybdenum. But it can also appear as pure nonexistence, as pure nonbeing. This paradoxical nature confounds our mind as we struggle to reconcile the idea of something that can be both existence and nonexistence at once. True Nature is also what we are. It is our essential identity, regardless of how we experience ourselves. It is the nature of everything and does not exist apart from the thing that it is the nature of. True Nature transcends space and cannot be thought of in spatial terms. It is the freedom of Total Being to manifest all these realities and to live as all these realities. And yet, it is nothing in particular. To be free, we have to live in fundamental innocence.
When we see without veils, we experience that the whole of existence possesses a single true nature—its common essential ground—and we find no distinction between appearance and true nature, for nothing can be separate from its nature. This is objective reality—all of existence perceived in its true, unobscured condition, in which everything is inseparable from its true nature. Experiencing this is enlightened or realized experience. We understand then that everything is really true nature, that the whole world is nothing but true nature displaying its inherent potentialities. We still see the many forms that reality takes, but those forms are transparent to their true nature, the essential ground of all of reality. – Spacecruiser Inquiry: True Guidance for the Inner Journey
The World is the Appearance of the Body of God
In the context of the Diamond Approach, there is a place for a personal God, which includes attitudes, states, and conditions best conceptualized in terms of relationship to a personal God. This perspective allows for direct experiences that help one understand and appreciate what the concept of a personal God can mean. It is important to note that a personal God does not mean God as a person; it means you relate to God as if you are a person. There’s a relationship between the person and beingness, between the soul and true nature.
The deeper nature of an individual is perceived as God itself, where realizing divine nature means not being an individual; it means being totality, universality, and infinity. Nothing is excluded from your sense of self. You realize then that whenever you talk to someone, you are talking to yourself. True love, true compassion, and true generosity arise now because there is no separation between you and the other. You could still feel yourself as an individual who sees how you are unique, but you know too that you are fundamentally connected. At a more intrinsic level, that separateness is not there.
God is not something different from Being, or true nature. It is one significant potential of the wholeness of Being, a particular way that this wholeness can manifest itself in our perception and understanding. Being can be impersonal, simply the true nature and ground of all; it can also be personal, as the creative Reality that is constantly generating manifestation and relating to it in a personal way. Furthermore, God is not separate from creation. The world is the creation of the personal God, but it is also the face of God. The world, in all its dimensions and forms, is simply the appearance of the body of God, and also God’s mind and heart. The world is a theophany. The two facets, world/cosmos and God/Being are intimately related. The world/cosmos is the experience of God/Being and God/Being is the nature and source of the world/cosmos. They are two facets of the same Reality. We can think of God/Being as true nature apart from the forms it manifests, which is one way some traditional teachings conceptualize the situation; but then the world/cosmos is the inseparable creation of God/Being, its external facet. In either case, there is no separation. In fact there is perfect co-emergent nonduality. – The Inner Journey Home: Soul’s Realization of the Unity of Reality
What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment doesn’t have a universally agreed-upon definition or understanding. It is used differently across various traditions and teachings. Sometimes it signifies attaining a certain stage of Being or refers to a certain insight, perception, or understanding. At times, it denotes a certain stage of inner development, often considered the final stage, which becomes problematic since different traditions perceive different conditions as the final stage. Enlightenment can mean the ego’s transcendence, the ego’s death, or the ego’s transformation. It can only be useful in a teaching that defines it very specifically.
In the context of the Diamond Approach, enlightenment is not a fixed condition but an open, dynamic reality. True nature reveals itself as infinite possibilities and cannot be constrained and defined by one ultimate or another. Enlightenment becomes a dynamic illumination that comprises both the illuminating dynamic and the dynamically illuminated. True nature is both the revealing light and the revealed truth of enlightenment. Some people think that enlightenment is when all your problems end. However, enlightenment is really when your problems start. It is partly the realization that you are responsible in your life, your life is your responsibility, and that you must live it.
The Diamond Approach also speaks of the ‘enlightenment drive,’ which is the drive within us to go toward greater actualization of our true nature, to bring that nature forward and display it in full consciousness, in full awareness. True nature has inherent the drive to reveal itself in our experience. This drive manifests as the actual engagement with the path, the engagement with experience from the perspective of truth and reality. When practice is continual, we realize that all the situations of life are occasions for practice, all the activities of life are part of practice.
Lastly, the Diamond Approach emphasizes that ego development and spiritual enlightenment are not two disjoint processes but parts of the same process. This understanding unifies traditional spiritual teachings and modern psychology into one field: human nature and development. It is how Being, impersonal and eternal, becomes a person, a human being on earth. So the process is a matter of Being, which is spirit, learning to live in physical embodiment.
Enlightenment Needs You to Recognize Itself
But from the view of totality, the nondual condition is only one of infinite kinds of possible realization. Nondual realization is accurate in the sense that this vastness and transparent truth is what is manifesting everything, and the self is either a delusion or a form simply manifested, and all activities are simply ways of seeing the continuous manifestation of reality as a whole in its unity and oneness. However, without the view of totality, we might forget that there would be no realization, no enlightenment, and no awareness of the nondual condition if it weren’t for the individual consciousness. In the nondual condition, the individual consciousness is not foreground. The self disappears, the individual disappears, even the soul disappears—there is only reality. There is only nondual presence. However, if there were no individual consciousness, there would be no perception, no sensation, and no awareness of nondual truth manifesting its possibilities. So you, as an individual, are important for realization. Enlightenment needs you to recognize itself; it needs you as an individual. In nondual truth, your sense of who you are is not as an individual. You are the Living Being that is the nature of everything and that is manifesting and creating everything. However, you as an individual who is practicing is how this nondual truth is recognizing its enlightenment. – Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery
Endless Enlightenment – Iain McNay & A. H. Almaas
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Approximate Timeline Points 2:20 – What’s it all about? |
Mystery of Being
Spiritual teachers refer to reality as a Mystery due to the inherent indeterminacy and inexhaustibility of ultimate truth. This perspective is rooted in the understanding that no matter how much we know, our knowledge is a tiny fraction in the vast ocean of the unknown, making the world full of mystery.
Mystery in spiritual teachings is not about the unknown in a conventional sense but rather about the direct experience of reality that transcends ordinary knowledge and discrimination. This is often called mystical knowing, which emphasizes basic knowledge’s direct feel and touch, focusing on its Being side. The less we focus on discriminating demarcations and the more we are immersed in the direct feel of the field, the more that gnosis will be mysterious, intuitive, even vague, and indiscernible.
The ultimate truth, or the Absolute, is a never-ending mystery. It cannot be fixed into a form or fully comprehended by the mind. The more we know, the more we realize our knowledge is still limited. This indeterminacy does not become a problem; instead, it becomes a source of continual delight and nourishment, always offering new revelations and insights. It is a never-ending adventure of consciousness, human participation in the divine’s enjoyment of self-revelation.
In essence, spiritual teachers refer to reality as a Mystery to express the infinite, indeterminate, and ever-unfolding nature of ultimate truth. It is a recognition of the vastness of what remains unknown and the continual process of revelation and understanding that comes with spiritual exploration.
We must remember that the essence of Being cannot be finally determined – this is what I call the inexhaustible mystery of Being. You can know it and know it and know it and know it, but you can never exhaust it. This is true about any manifestation of Being – in fact, about anything in life, anything you experience. You can know the experience precisely, but this precise knowledge is never final. It is this ultimate mystery that allows the unknowingness to continue being there, for regardless of how much we know, we still don’t know. There is always unknowingness. – Spacecruiser Inquiry: True Guidance for the Inner Journey
FAQ
- What is the Diamond Approach?
The Diamond Approach is a path of inner discovery that combines spiritual teachings and modern psychology. This methodology leads to personal discovery, revelation, and understanding through open-ended inquiry into immediate experience. It is not a religion or a belief system but a way to explore our beliefs and convictions about the nature of reality, who, and what we are. - What is True Nature according to the Diamond Approach?
True Nature refers to the deepest, most authentic reality of existence. The underlying reality gives rise to and permeates all forms of existence. True Nature is not static or singular; it is dynamic and multifaceted, capable of manifesting in many ways. It can be experienced as a crystal or a stone, symbolizing the solidity and permanence of existence, or as warm compassion, a tender force that connects us to others and drives us to act in service to them. - What are some common mistakes made in the Diamond Approach?
Some common mistakes include not truly loving the truth, undermining presence, and sensing, looking, and listening from the past. These mistakes often result from misunderstanding truth, presence, and perception. - What is the concept of God in the Diamond Approach?
In the Diamond Approach, God is not something different from Being or true nature. It is one significant potential of the wholeness of Being, a particular way that this can manifest itself in our perception and understanding. The world is the creation of the personal God, but it is also the face of God. The world, in all its dimensions and forms, is simply the appearance of God’s body and mind and heart. - What is Enlightenment in the Diamond Approach?
In the Diamond Approach, enlightenment is not a fixed condition but an open, dynamic reality. It is the drive within us to go toward greater actualization of our true nature, to bring that nature forward and display it in full consciousness, in full awareness. Enlightenment becomes a dynamic illumination that comprises both the illuminating dynamic and the dynamically illuminated. - What is the Mystery of Being in the Diamond Approach?
The Mystery of Being refers to the inherent indeterminacy and inexhaustibility of ultimate truth. No matter how much we know, our knowledge is tiny in the vast ocean of the unknown, making the world mysterious. The ultimate truth, or the Absolute, is a never-ending mystery. It cannot be fixed into a form or fully comprehended by the mind.