The Almaasary

(ahl • mahs • uh • ry)
1. A glossary of key passages from the works of A.H. Almaas.
2. A collection of diamonds (from Arabic "almaas" meaning diamond, and Latin "-ary", a collection).

Glossary: C

• Castration
  

  By learning to defend consciously against the superego, the individual is really rejecting, or rather separating from, this identification with the parent of the same sex, which will ultimately bring out to consciousness the basis of the identification. Since the identifications relevant here are with the parent of the same... more »

• Cathedral
  

  "The Cathedral" is one of the names for the Diamond Will because it frequently appears in consciousness as an inner form resembling a cathedral. We may call this a psychic structure, but not in the usual meaning of the term. It is not an organization of remembered impressions. In this... more »

• Cathexis
  

  In our understanding, when used to define narcissism, the term cathexis refers to the fact that one experiences one's self-concept as inseparable from one's self. It highlights the intimate integration of this self-concept. It becomes easier to understand if we think of it in relation to the integration of the... more »

• Central Narcissism
  

  Central narcissism, which results from disturbances in both the differentiation and practicing subphases of the separation-individuation process, spanning the period roughly from seven months to eighteen months, but particularly in the practicing period, and probably extending to the beginning of the rapprochement subphase, up to two years of age. This... more »

• Central Object Relation
  

  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... more »

• Cessation
  

  So, nothingness as a space goes so deep that after a while it eliminates the consciousness of itself... This experience is called cessation or extinction: complete death. It is what people usually think of as death. It is exactly how death is. You don't have to die physically to experience... more »

• Chakras
  

  Chakra is an Indian word meaning "center" or "wheel." The chakras are different centers of certain energies; the heart chakra is one of many. They are usually located at the main plexi of the nervous system and are very much linked with the nervous system and its processes. Their function... more »

• Change
  

  When it is allowed, change can only be good, can only be expansion. The natural movement is towards greater abundance. If you are not experiencing expansion and abundance it's because you are interfering. There is no other reason. more »

• Child
  

  At the beginning, the capacity of the infant to simply be is intact. He is, without knowing it. His being himself is completely natural and nonconceptual. He does not know that he is being himself, for he does not even have the concept of self. He is being Presence when... more »

• Child Identity
  

  Thus, according to ego psychology, a stable sense of identity or separate self is not something that the human being is born with, but is a result of a developmental process -- what Mahler has called separation-individuation. At birth there is no awareness of an entity that is separate from... more »

• Christian Virtues
  

  Another possible area of confusion with the essential aspects is the Christian virtues, like charity, sobriety, humility, and so on. However, this is again a different logos. The virtues are not the essential qualities themselves; they are actually not qualities of spiritual presence or the divinity. They are manifestations of... more »

• Citadel
  

  The experience of this new dimension of Will is of being supported in a specific way. One feels one does not need ego defenses, because one now has the real “defense.” This aspect of Essence is sometimes specifically experienced as the defense of Essence. This is one reason why we... more »

• Clarification
  

  Each time you understand an issue or an identification with a past conflict or a now-unnecessary defense, you discharge feelings associated with the issue and work through the feelings and the beliefs about it. As you have seen many times, working through an issue – which involves ceasing to be... more »

• Clear Essence
  

  The clarity we are discussing is a specific element in the process of understanding. This clarity is indistinguishable from objectivity. And objectivity and clarity are the qualities of the Clear diamond of the Diamond Guidance. Both qualities are important and specific to the Guidance, and the Clear Diamond brings them... more »

• Clear Light
  

  Clear light or transparent luminosity turns out to be the ground presence of essential manifestations. It is pure being, authentic nondifferentiated presence. When we experience it in its inseparability from emptiness we recognize true nature as the coemergence of being and nonbeing. But the state is totally nonconceptual, and this... more »

• Cognition
  

  Since there is no differentiation in pure presence, its knowing is the first knowing, the origin of cognition. We see that the origin of cognition is the experience of being, or more precisely, the dimension of pure presence. Knowing begins with being, which is the knowing of being. It becomes... more »

• Cognitive Process
  

  In the normal cognitive process, we abstract certain forms and patterns from the overall unified field of knowledge and retain them in memory. The accumulation of these abstractions is what we ordinarily call knowledge. Our cultural environment largely determines which forms and patterns we focus on, isolate, and abstract. Thus... more »

• Commanding Self
  

  Others, like the Sufis, see ego as a collection of primitive impulses and conditioned patterns which appear to the “unenlightened” as a cohesive entity with its own consciousness and volition. The ego or self in its ordinary state, before Sufi development, is referred to as the “commanding self.” more »

• Commitment
  

  Commitment is essentially a dedication – bringing yourself closer to what you want to do. So the act of will is pushing you closer to what you want to do. We say that at the essential level there is no such thing as faith, there is only knowledge. It is... more »

• Compassion
  

  Compassion is a kind of healing agent which helps us to tolerate the hurt of seeing the truth. The function of compassion in the Work is not to reduce hurt; its function is to lead to the truth. Much of the time, the truth is painful or scary. Compassion makes... more »

• Completeness
  

  To be complete means to be thoroughly serene, totally, completely in repose, so much in repose that pleasure and pain come and go, but are irrelevant, surface phenomena. To be complete means you are not interested in things being any particular way. If you're complete, why would you have an... more »

• Compulsion
  

  Compulsion and attachment indicate preferences in the mind; they mean you’re living in the realm of the past. That’s why some paths utilize the fact that a practical way to work on yourself or to seek reality is to the find balance, to learn not to have excess in anything... more »

• Concepts
  

  In the process of conceptualizing and naming the world, we forget that these elements didn’t exist for us until we differentiated from them, separated them, isolated them, and named them. We don’t remember what happened before that, because there wasn’t enough conceptual capacity to remember things before that. What we... more »

• Conceptualizing
  

  When you say that there is a mountain and there is flat land and they are different, your mind automatically, naturally, becomes crystallized around the concept of a mountain as reality and flat land as reality. This crystallization prevents you from seeing that they are one thing. You do not... more »

• Conditioning
  

  These (psychodynamic issues) are the barriers and limitations due to past experience and its repression. Conditioning is the result of impressions from the past, and tends to remain outside of consciousness, functioning automatically. Exploring psychodynamic tissues reveals to the soul how many of its experiences, attitudes, and actions are influenced... more »

• Consciousness
  

  Many traditions conceive of Being as ontological or nonconceptual Presence. But some schools, such as the Hindu tradition, conceive of true nature as pure consciousness. There is actually no difficulty between this view and that of Presence because Presence is the Essence of pure consciousness; expressed in a different way,... more »

• Contact
  

  The transition from identity with past object relations to the presence of the Personal Essence is a prerequisite for true personal contact... It is always the case that when someone is working with the issue of contact, he is working on the realization of the Personal Essence. Contact is the... more »

• Contentment
  

  People actually think they can achieve contentment, love, happiness, by getting this or that; they want the right kind of body, the right kind of lover, the right house. When you see what you can experience in the realm of Essence, you see that these things are peanuts. Absolutely nothing.... more »

• Contraction
  

  So any state of non-surrender is a contraction, a tension, a grasping. It can take many forms and be experienced at many depths. It can be hard like armor, so that you aren't even aware of it most of the time, or it can be softer, like a defensive attitude... more »

• Conventional Self
  

  The following structure defines the conventional experience of the self: We are identified with a particular self-representation We experience ourselves within and through this self-representation This self representation is related to an object or objects The set of object relations, that is, self-representations in relation to object representations, constitutes the... more »

• Cosmic Consciousness
  

  So to understand the relation of the mind to the cosmos, we must first understand the nature of the mind, which we call space. Space cannot be known completely until a sense of separate mental consciousness is eliminated. When you as a separate person, as an individual, are completely absorbed... more »

• Cosmic Hole
  

  In terms of the individual, when a deficient emptiness is accepted it usually becomes displaced by the essential aspect lost, as we have discussed. This applies to the cosmic emptiness as well. If and when one remains with this universal deficient emptiness it slowly starts filling out with the beautiful... more »

• Courage
  

  I call this the Socratic method because Socrates was the first major figure we know who engaged this process directly, who sat down with people and asked them pointed questions such as, What is courage? Everybody thought they knew what courage was, but he led them in inquiry, first showing... more »

• Creation
  

  In this dimension (dynamic presence)… we perceive how experience happens, which turns out to be the same as the generation of manifestation. More precisely, we do not perceive a difference between the perceiver, the perceived, and the act of perception. All of these are generated together as the specifics of... more »

• Creativity
  

  This present arising is creativity, and in this sense, everything is creativity. The whole thing is a constant process of creation. Everything is being created every second, every split-second. You are being created; so is everything. We have been lulled into the conventional belief that we come from the past... more »

• Creator of Form
  

  Without mind, there is no variety, discrimination or differentiation; we see no form and hence, no beauty. The mind is the creator of form, the creator of beauty, and understanding is that process of creation, of unfoldment. So, the fulfillment of our lives is to see life objectively, to see... more »

• Crystal Dimension
  

  We call this dimension of nonconceptual Reality the crystal dimension. The forms of the world appear in this dimension of true nature as shapes and colors nonconceptual presence takes. There is no knowing, but these forms are the same ones that become knowable at the dimension of pure presence. At... more »

• Curiosity
  

  A central, crucial aspect of this work, the spirit of truth, is curiosity. That is the method, the goal and the path. They’re all there, all the time. There is no need to be enlightened to become curious, right? Curiosity is always there, a certain attitude or movement that we’re... more »