A Teacher
A. H. Almaas (A. Hameed Ali)
Realisation of Essence through inquiry
The transmission
A. H. Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali (born 1944), a writer and spiritual teacher originally from Kuwait. “Almaas” is Arabic for “diamond.” He moved to the United States at eighteen to study at the University of California, Berkeley, and was pursuing a PhD in physics when his inquiry turned toward the psychological and spiritual nature of the human being.
From this turning he developed the Diamond Approach, a path that weaves modern depth psychology and object-relations theory together with the contemplative traditions, and in 1976 he founded the Ridhwan School to teach it.
Almaas matters to the mind-power lineage for his synthesis of psychological self-investigation with spiritual realisation. His central concept is Essence, a human being’s intrinsic true nature, distinct from the acquired ego or personality.
Through a precise method of open-ended inquiry, the practitioner meets the psychological structures and “holes” of the self and discovers, beneath them, specific qualities of Essence (such as strength, compassion, value, or peace) experienced as living, felt presence.
This makes the Diamond Approach one of the most rigorous bridges between Western psychology and nondual realisation, influential across transpersonal and integral communities.
What they gave
The Diamond Approach: A systematic path uniting psychological inquiry with spiritual realisation of one’s true nature.
- Essence vs. personality: Distinguishes the intrinsic, present-tense self (Essence) from the acquired ego, locating realisation in the recovery of the former.
- Inquiry as practice: Develops open-ended, present-moment inquiry in which “the practice is the expression of realisation.”
- Psychology-meets-nonduality: Integrates object-relations theory with Sufi, Buddhist, and Advaitic insight, a key reference point for transpersonal psychology.
In their words
That is the nature of awareness. And because it is light, it doesn’t help us see—it is what sees, it is what perceives. Thus light, awareness, consciousness, perception, sensitivity are all the same thing.
The more we are present and the more fully we are experiencing and being our essential presence, the more we will experience things slowing down.
The only place we touch True Nature is in the present moment, not in the past or the future. In the present moment is where True Nature intersects time, because it is the now.
In other words, the orientation of hope—hoping for something in the future—disconnects you from who you really are.
To be in the now connects you with that quiet beingness that underlies all changes, all activity—the simple hereness where what is most basic is not activity but presence.
In the practice of being where we are, it becomes clear that to be ourselves, to be real, we need to be in the present moment.
We do not trust that action can arise and proceed from inner stillness; we do not recognize that Being is the ground of everything.
One cannot seek happiness, for it is the result of realizing the Truth. For Joy is the radiance of the heart when Truth is appreciated.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Sufism and the Gurdjieff work; depth psychology and object-relations theory; Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism.
- Influenced: Ridhwan School teachers; integral and transpersonal circles; dialogue with Ken Wilber’s integral framework.
Revelations they taught
Orders & Societies
Essential Works
- Essence: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization1986
- The Pearl Beyond Price1988
- Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas1998