Teaching
He developed the Diamond Approach, a spiritual teaching that draws on ancient spiritual traditions and on modern depth psychology. Its practice is inquiry into one's own experience: working through particular parts of the personality is meant to open the way, step by step, to essence or true nature. He describes it as spiritual work, not psychotherapy. 3, 4, 7
Who it is for
For people who want to explore their psychological patterns and spiritual realisation together, through close inquiry into their own experience, and who are open to working over years in a group.
Life and places
- He was born A. Hameed Ali in Kuwait in 1944 and moved to the United States at eighteen to study at the University of California, Berkeley; he left his doctoral studies in physics to turn to inner inquiry. 1, 5
- In 1971 he joined a group in Berkeley led by the psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo, and he went on to study with other teachers. 5, 6
- In the mid-1970s he founded the Ridhwan School in Boulder, Colorado, and soon afterwards began teaching in Berkeley, California; he developed the Diamond Approach together with Karen Johnson. 1, 5, 6
Public context
Works
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The Pearl Beyond Price: Integration of Personality into Being
Book · 1988 · Diamond Books, Berkeley
A study of how the development of the ego and spiritual realisation belong together, drawing on psychoanalytic object relations theory. It holds that inner realisation is possible within an ordinary human life.
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Essence: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization
Book · 1986 · Samuel Weiser, York Beach, Maine
His introduction to the Diamond Approach: essence as one's true nature, and how its qualities can be realised step by step through work on particular parts of the personality.
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The Void: Inner Spaciousness and Ego Structure
Book · 1986 · Diamond Books, Berkeley
Brings together object relations theory, ego psychology, case studies from his own work and Buddhist and other Eastern teachings, and turns from the contents of the mind to the nature of the mind itself.
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Diamond Heart, Book One: Elements of the Real in Man
Book · Diamond Books, Berkeley
The first volume of a series of his talks on the Diamond Approach, on faith, commitment, nobility and suffering, truth and compassion, allowing, and growing up.
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The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers' Stone and the Secrets of Existence
Book · 2017 · Shambhala
Uses the image of the philosophers' stone for true nature, the nature of all reality, and describes liberation and practice as an open-ended process of discovery.
The short summaries are ours.
In their own words
Short passages in the words of A. H. Almaas, each with its source. Where the quoted text is not in the language of this page, a translation follows and says whose it is.
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Being means no reaction, no mental activity that defines who or what one is. In fact, Being is not an activity at all; it is an existence, a suchness, a thereness, a Presence that is not doing anything to be there.
The Pearl Beyond Price: Integration of Personality into Being · p. 57 (entry 'Being is an Existence, a Suchness' in his school's glossary) · web.archive.org -
Simply being is not a matter of being anything in particular; it is not a matter of being according to any view of ourselves, realistic or not. Simply being means the absence of any activity, inner or outer, to be ourselves. Simply being is just that: Being.
The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization · p. 81 (entry 'Simply Being is Just that: Being' in his school's glossary) · web.archive.org -
It requires discipline and patience, gentleness and attunement, because the only one who can know where your consciousness is is you.
The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence · p. 224 (entry 'Being Where You Are' in his school's glossary) · web.archive.org -
The old idea is that the personality is the barrier and must be removed before there can be a recognition of our essential beingness. Our findings indicate that essence can be realized in steps or in degrees, simultaneously with work on the personality.
Essence: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization · p. 59 (quoted in Harry Hunt, Lucidity Letter 8/2, December 1989, p. 2) · journals.macewan.ca
Sources
- The Founders · Diamond Approach (archived copy, January 2022) Website of his own school; biography of Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson accessed 13 Oct 2026
- A. H. Almaas · Diamond Approach (archived copy, January 2022) Website of his own school; short biography and recommended books accessed 13 Oct 2026
- Meet the Teachers · Introduction to the Diamond Approach (online course) Online course of his own school; short biographies of him and of three teachers accessed 13 Oct 2026
- A. H. Almaas, Spiritual Work and Psychotherapy (1995) · Diamond Approach (archived copy, January 2021) His own paper for teachers and students of his school accessed 13 Oct 2026
- Tony Schwartz, Uncovering the Essential Self, New Age Journal, May/June 1995 (reproduced by the Diamond Approach, archived copy) Magazine article by a journalist who interviewed him and attended a workshop; favourable; reproduced on his school's website accessed 13 Oct 2026
- Clay Evans, New path: Ridhwan teaches new way of looking at the world · Daily Camera, Boulder, 17 April 2009 (archived copy) Local newspaper report with interviews of him and of students accessed 13 Oct 2026
- Harry Hunt, A.H. Almaas and the Synthesis of Transpersonal and Psychoanalytic Psychologies · Lucidity Letter 8/2, December 1989 Academic review essay by a psychologist on his first three books; appreciative, with critical remarks accessed 13 Oct 2026
- The Unfolding Now · Penguin Random House (Shambhala) Publisher's catalogue page with ISBN, date, description and author note accessed 13 Oct 2026
- Essence With the Elixir of Enlightenment · Red Wheel/Weiser Publisher's catalogue page of the combined edition of 1998 accessed 13 Oct 2026
Compiled by us from the sources listed. Last checked 13 Oct 2026.
This description is factual. It contains no recommendation, ranking or assurance. Statements about effects are those of the respective source.