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What emerged for the participants in this seminar—and, we hope, for the readers of this book—is the recognition that the bringing together of our animalistic impulses with the angelic sacredness of our spiritual nature in our human experience can contribute to the journey toward wholeness. We can live fully as physical beings on Earth, inseparable from knowing ourselves as the exalted transcendent truth of spirit. The integration of these levels of existence will allow us to experience the dynamic living presence of our spiritual nature pouring into the world, taking on form and living through that form as who we are in our uniqueness—all the while never stopping being the totality of all.
In the way we usually work, we use the mind’s discriminating capacity, the heart’s loving nature, and the body’s precious vehicle of life to go beyond all of these without leaving any of them behind. We do not emphasize one over the other, nor does deeper refinement through our work mean that we transcend these centers of our being; we simply see the natural potential hidden within them all. In the course of our spiritual maturation, each becomes more capable and more fully realized, not less. Thus we use the mind to go beyond the mind’s limitations; we use the capacity of discrimination to reveal subtler levels of mind. But here, the heart’s innate love for beauty and truth is a guiding principle: The marriage of heart and mind is a must on this spiritual journey, for it is the segmentation of our experience that keeps them limited and restricted to conventional reality. The love of truth allows the mind to open to new possibilities that mental logic alone cannot reveal or consider entering. And the heart can be clarified of its historical and emotional content through the mind’s clarity and precision, making available the energy liberated from the trapped structures of our personal history, so it can nurture and enliven our evolving spiritual development. This is the hidden tantra within the work of this path. The term “tantra” refers to teachings that use energy for the sake of evolving spiritual being. Energy can be erotic, even sexual, but energy can also be emotional, mental, or simply energy itself. In this seminar, we made explicit the ways in which newly unblocked and released energies can liberate the spirit and reveal deeper mysteries of relationship and love—whether with God, true nature, or another human being.
Both heart and mind are necessary for opening to truth—the deep desire to know the truth for its own sake and the love for the truth beyond all else. And as our practice of inquiry and meditation is refined over time, it becomes more obvious that the interdependence of mind and heart, and their integration through embodied experience, is vital for the revelation of our true being, for the wisdom of knowing and expressing its true nature.
What we wanted to explore during these days was how the energy and quality of love explicitly open the door to reality and to our deeper nature. The process of discovery in the group revealed that the portal is there for every human being to open; each of us can be fully real and alive in all our interactions. And the erotic, as it is felt and experienced in the body, is a part of that openness, whether it becomes sexual or not. For many reasons, eros has become separated from the pure and the holy, and as a result, it is usually relegated to the domain of the gross and unrefined. But eros is the energy of the divine. As such, it is always divine and pure.
One of the main tenets of the tantric approach as it is taught in our work is to feel whatever we are feeling in any given moment. It is not necessary to either act a feeling out or suppress it. We don’t try to change either our feelings or ourselves; instead, we let the energy change us. Not acting out an emotion will eventually lead to the pure energy within it. And understanding the charge that we carry about the feeling will allow the energy to be cleansed of the fixed content of the charged emotion from the past, leaving it pure and clean, simply itself. This energy opens us to the realm of Being where we experience the essence of our being as flowing, dynamic, alive, intelligent presence. Frequently, the liberated energy opens up to a dimension of experience where the explosive and dazzling pulsing thrill becomes foreground, manifesting as the fully alive energy of spirit and life. In this process, we see that the spiritual journey need not be a choice between the various parts of ourselves but, rather, through embracing the totality of our experience, the realization of a personal life of nonattachment without renunciation. Nothing has to be excluded. Then we can know ourselves as our unencumbered essence while enjoying a life of fulfillment.
When one has tasted freedom, there is a natural movement to share with others who may benefit from the gifts of what that freedom has revealed.
The practice of presence develops over time so that you also become aware of what is present and who is present. Who is the you that is present? What is the essence of your awareness? The practice of presence becomes an important and significant way of knowing our spiritual nature, of knowing and feeling the deeper dimensions of our Being. One of the specific practices of presence that we recommend is to sense your body. The body has many centers, and the main ones we work with in the Diamond Approach are the belly center, the heart center, and the head center. The core of the primal energies that make up our life force is located in the lower body, and the belly center is the organizing hub for all of these energies. The belly has an energetic center, an energetic spiritual center. It is located in the center of the belly about three fingers below the navel and, depending on the size of your belly, anywhere from two to five fingers inside. The Japanese call it the hara center and the Chinese call it t’an tien. We call this point the Kath, a term taken from a Central Asian tradition. The belly center is also the grounding center: Your consciousness is like a tree, and the roots of the tree are in the belly. So we will be referring to this center as both the Kath and the belly center. Because the belly center is related to the energies of the life force, we often have you sense your belly. As you become more aware of that area, and the belly center becomes more developed, more present, you become more in touch with the raw energies of your life force. Then you can better access what we call instinctual energy—the various energies of your survival, sexual, and social instincts.
The core of the primal energies that make up our life force is located in the lower body, and the belly center is the organizing hub for all of these energies. The belly has an energetic center, an energetic spiritual center. It is located in the center of the belly about three fingers below the navel and, depending on the size of your belly, anywhere from two to five fingers inside. The Japanese call it the hara center and the Chinese call it t’an tien. We call this point the Kath, a term taken from a Central Asian tradition. The belly center is also the grounding center: Your consciousness is like a tree, and the roots of the tree are in the belly. So we will be referring to this center as both the Kath and the belly center. Because the belly center is related to the energies of the life force, we often have you sense your belly. As you become more aware of that area, and the belly center becomes more developed, more present, you become more in touch with the raw energies of your life force. Then you can better access what we call instinctual energy—the various energies of your survival, sexual, and social instincts.
will help you connect to divine eros, so that you become both eros and divine. [Readers are invited to do the Kath meditation (the belly meditation) on their own for twenty minutes daily and in conjunction with reading each chapter of The Power of Divine Eros. Exploring this practice as well as other meditations and practices that are described in this book will help to unfold your own experience as you grow in the awareness of divine eros.—Ed.]
THE KATH MEDITATION The Kath meditation is usually done in a sitting position. Using a chair is fine, but any other means of keeping your back straight is okay, too. The mudra (Sanskrit for “hand posture”) for this meditation looks like the Taoist yin/yang symbol, with the right hand holding the left hand, the fingers of one hand nesting in the other. This is called a mudra of containment, because it helps you contain your energy within so that it concentrates and can develop and strengthen. For this meditation, it is best to have the eyes closed. Your mouth can be slightly open or closed, and it is good to have your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, the upper palate. Begin by paying attention to your breathing. Most people breathe in their chest, but in this meditation you will be breathing in the belly. As you breathe, feel your belly, sense it, as though you were touching it from the inside. With each breath, the belly expands, and as you exhale, the belly gets smaller again. You don’t have to take big or deep breaths; just be aware that there is breathing in the belly. As you become aware of breathing in the belly, begin to concentrate your mind—which means concentrate your awareness, concentrate your attention—at the center of the belly. When you concentrate your attention at that center in the belly, you will not find anything in particular. This meditation is simply a concentration of…
AI Summary
The Power of Divine Eros by A. H. Almaas, Karen Johnson presents key insights from the Diamond Approach tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
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Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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