Between the ephemeral now and the timeless eternal, the soul emerges as essence, a profound vessel of sensitivity. A.H. Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach™, articulates this with sublime clarity: the soul’s sensitivity is its quintessential faculty for discerning the veiled layers of reality, navigating the spectra of the dual and the non-dual.
Unveiling Sensitivity: The Soul’s Delicate Instrument
By its very nature, sensitivity is an intricate capability to perceive, detect, and engage with the cosmos’ subtle whispers and overt calls. It manifests in myriad forms; emotional sensitivity connects us with the undercurrents of human sentiment, while sensory sensitivity heightens our interaction with the elemental forces of light, sound, and touch.
There is no experience or knowing without the sensitivity of our true nature. So, we can say that we are, most fundamentally, sensitivity.
- Middle French: sensitif – “capable of feeling”
- Medieval Latin: sensitivus – “capable of sensation”
- Latin: sensus – derived from sentire, “to feel”
The evolution of its usage mirrors the soul’s journey: expanding from mere physical sensations to embracing a profound emotional and spiritual awareness.
The Soul’s Landscape of Sensitivity
Almaas envisions the soul as a vast field of consciousness, exquisitely attuned to the subtle dynamics within and without. This sensitivity is not merely a passive receptacle but an active, discerning force, making visible the invisible threads that connect the tapestry of existence. Through this lens, the soul perceives the world’s manifold expressions and deep, intrinsic unity.
From Duality to Non-Duality: The Soul’s Pilgrimage
In the mundane realm, perception is shackled by duality—self and other, here and there, now and then. Yet, nurturing our sensitivity fosters an ascent from this dualistic confinement to the liberated plains of non-dual reality. Here, the illusory boundaries dissolve into the expansive recognition of oneness with all.
Pilgrimage Milestones:
- Depth Tuning: Tuning into its profound depths, transcending reactive impulses.
- Reflective Wisdom: Cultivating reflective, encompassing wisdom.
- Sacred Portal: Sensitivity as the portal to transcend separateness.
Sensitivity: The Alchemy of Spiritual Transformation
The soul’s metamorphosis is a saga of awakening to its true essence, often veiled by the mind’s elaborate masquerades. As the soul delves deeper, our consciousness becomes more open and transparent through meditation, introspection, and sacred inquiry; it casts off the coarse garments of ego and persona, revealing the luminosity of its true nature.
Brilliancy: In moments of profound clarity, the soul basks in “Brilliancy,” the radiant awareness that illuminates the non-dual nature of existence. Here, sensitivity is both the path and the walker; through this refined sensitivity, the soul knows itself and its environs, realizing its indissoluble unity with the cosmos.
Navigating the Trials and Triumphs of Sensitivity
The journey of sensitivity is strewn with challenges. In a world enamored with the numbing allure of desensitization, to remain sensitively attuned is an act of rebellion—an embrace of the vividness of life in its most unvarnished form. The soul that remains open to this sensitivity is endowed with profound capacities for love, compassion, and transcendental insight, perceiving the divine in the mundane and the unity in diversity.
Benefits of Sensitivity:
- Profound Capacities: Enhanced capacities for love, compassion, and insight.
- Transcendental Insight: Perceiving the divine immanence in everyday occurrences.
- Harmonic Connection: Recognizing every sensation as a harmonic in the grand symphony of the universe.
Cultivating Sensitivity: The Art of Spiritual Horticulture
Cultivating this sensitivity requires intention and practice. It involves clearing the weeds of distraction and the overgrowth of ego that can stifle the soul’s natural receptivity. Meditation, contemplation, and the practices taught in the Diamond Approach serve as the tools for this spiritual horticulture, enabling the soul to become more attuned to its subtle inner frequencies and the eternal call of the divine.
Tools for Cultivation:
- Meditation: Clearing mental clutter, focusing on inner stillness.
- Open-ended Inquiry: Engaging in deep, reflective exploration of consciousness and your psyche.
- Diamond Approach: Specific practices that enhance emotional and sensory sensitivity.
The Challenges of Sensitivity in a Desensitized World
Navigating sensitivity in a world that often values hardness and insensitivity is a formidable challenge. With its relentless pace and superficial engagements, the modern ethos dulls the soul’s delicate sensors. To counteract this, one must deliberately engage in practices that restore and enhance sensitivity. This might mean periodically withdrawing from the cacophony of modern life to the quiet, where the soul can heal and recalibrate.
The Triumphs of Sensitivity: Seeing the Divine in All
The ultimate triumph of sensitivity is its ability to reveal the divine immanence in all things. This heightened awareness dismantles the illusion of separation, weaving the individual soul into the universal tapestry. Love, compassion, and deep understanding flow from this union illuminating the sacred in the seemingly mundane and revealing the interconnectedness of all life.
The Challenge of Maintaining Sensitivity
Maintaining sensitivity requires passive endurance and active courage in a world that often presents as harsh and indifferent. It is a courage that demands openness even in the face of vulnerability, a choice to respond with empathy rather than retreat into indifference. This challenge is not merely a personal struggle but a collective one, as societies frequently elevate traits such as toughness and emotional detachment as ideals of success and stability.
The Cost of Insensitivity
Individuals learn to armor themselves from an early age against their environments’ emotional and sensory onslaught. While serving an immediate survival function, this protective mechanism gradually becomes a profound loss, diminishing the soul’s natural capacity for sensitivity. This conditioning embeds deep patterns of behavior that reinforce insensitivity—where responsiveness is often sacrificed for a semblance of control or safety.
The Patterns That Bind
These patterns of insensitivity are not merely habits but become entrenched in our identity. They manifest as fixed ways of reacting to the world, often prioritizing efficiency and stoicism over depth and connectivity. Breaking free from these patterns requires conscious effort and significant spiritual work. It involves revisiting the wounded parts of the soul, reawakening its dormant capacities, and often, unlearning much of what has been culturally and personally ingrained.
The Courage to Remain Open
Choosing sensitivity in such a context is an act of bravery. It involves embracing the full spectrum of human experience—from the depths of despair to the heights of joy—without the filters that dull the soul’s perceptions. The rewards of such courage are substantial: richer connections with others, deeper insights into the nature of existence, and a more authentic way of being in the world. Sensitivity, therefore, is not just a personal attribute but a radical stance against the cultural tide of desensitization.
Sensitivity as a Spiritual Practice
In the spiritual domain, sensitivity transcends its conventional boundaries to become both a practice and a state of being. It is an ongoing commitment to remain open to life’s moment-to-moment experience, allowing the soul to be equally touched by the mundane and the sublime.
Continuous Openness
This continuous openness is not passive but an active engagement with life. It challenges the soul to remain vigilant and not retreat into the comfort of numbed indifference. Each moment becomes a potential site for spiritual awakening as the soul learns to perceive the divine traces in the ordinary.
Peeling Away the Layers
The practice of sensitivity in spirituality involves peeling away the layers of noise that cloud true perception. This noise is external but mostly internal—the cacophony of fears, biases, and conditioned responses that obscure the soul’s clarity. As these layers are peeled away, the luminous essence of the soul emerges—a clarity of perception that can see the interconnectedness of all things.
Sensitivity Unshackled
Releasing the soul’s sensitivity from the shackles of conditioned insensitivity involves deep introspection and often re-evaluating the values and beliefs that societies and individuals hold dear. It requires dismantling barriers built from pain or misunderstanding and replacing them with bridges of empathy and compassion.
Embracing the Sensitivity of Our Nature
The narrative of sensitivity outlined by the Diamond Approach offers a path to personal and spiritual growth and a revolutionary blueprint for societal transformation. Embracing sensitivity, with all its challenges and opportunities, calls for a profound reassessment of how we live, relate, and connect.
Journey of Embracing Sensitivity
This journey of embracing sensitivity is not merely about achieving personal peace or enlightenment but is about actively creating a more connected, empathetic, and understanding world. It is a call to action for all who seek a deeper engagement with life, urging us to witness the world and influence it profoundly through our heightened sensitivity.
The Symphony of Sensitivity
Each note the soul plays in this soulful symphony resonates with the universe’s vibrations. The soul, as sensitivity, hears these notes clearly and distinctly, from the faintest rustling of the spiritual breeze to the thunderous ovations of cosmic events. Each experience, whether mundane or profound, is filtered through the soul’s sensitive nature, enabling a nuanced understanding and profound emotional and spiritual growth.
The soul’s capacity to respond to these stimuli—its responsive sensitivity—mirrors the body’s instinctive recoil from pain or its gravitation toward pleasure, but at a more refined, spiritual level. Responsive sensitivity guides the soul away from harmful influences and toward nurturing environments, promoting a healthy spiritual ecosystem that fosters growth and enlightenment.
Through the deliberate sharpening of its sensitivity, the soul engages more deeply with the world and transcends its apparent dualities. It arrives at non-dual awareness that celebrates the interconnectedness of all existence. In this embrace, the soul finds not just peace or escape but a profound return to its most essential nature, where every sensation is recognized as a note in the universe’s symphony.
This narrative of sensitivity, as explored through the teachings of A.H. Almaas and the practices of the Diamond Approach, offers not only a profound insight into the nature of reality but also a compelling invitation to live fully and sensitively in a world that often seems intent on muting the very frequencies that connect us.
In cultivating our sensitivity, we do not merely adapt to life; we transform it, expressing a reality rich with meaning, connection, and unity.
This is the soul’s sensitivity: a medium for perceiving reality, a path to experiencing the divine, and a call to action for all who seek a deeper, more connected existence.