A Synopsis of Essence by A.H. Almaas

"The discovery of essence is the beginning of the true life"

AH Almaas (also known as Hameed Ali) is an author and spiritual teacher who co-founded the Rhidhwan School with Karen Johnson. Together they created The Diamond Approach, which is a contemporary spiritual path and community, using self-inquiry as it’s central method of teaching. I'm sharing a summary of his book entitled Essence, which I found to be a wonderful explanation of what we are journeying towards on our paths of Kundalini awakening. What I loved about the book is that Almaas not only points out what essence is, he also points out what it is often mistaken for, what is getting in it's way and how we can enable it to come through.

What is essence?

Despite stating that words can never convey the precise experience of essence, Almaas does attempt to articulate what it is. However, he also points out that, for anyone who has not experienced essence, they will not be capable of connecting his description to their experience.

Essence is the part of us we are born with and is not a product of our upbringing or education, rather it is our true nature that is independent of our conditioning. It is the experience of “I am”. The direct experience of existence, the only thing in us that is aware of its own existence. Most people “know that they exist, but they do not know if directly” (Almaas, 1998, p.11). The body is alive, but essence is life itself, experienced as something that is most intimately ourselves and inseparable from us, “…not a state of mind, but an actual and palpable ontological presence”. (Almaas, 1998, p.76).

Typically, people believe they exist because they see their bodies, hear their voice, feel emotions and sensations etc. However, this points to a separation between the experiencer and the experience, when essence is experienced the experiencer and the experience become the same thing; “The object, the subject, and the medium of perception are all the same: essence…there is no separation whatsoever, no duality and no differentiation.” (Almaas, 1998, p.11).

What it is not

Many things are mistaken for essence in spiritual and psychological work and to help explain what Essence is, Almaas also points out what it is not.

It is not a mental or emotional experience. The mind can think about existence but it cannot reach it. It is not a thought or an idea or any self-image. Essence does influence the mind and will affect the things people do, think and the emotions they experience, but essence is in itself none of these things. In Almass’s opinion, Jung “got very close to essence” but he stayed within the realms of imagination and visions and while his visions we are close representation of essence, his experience of self was a psychological construct and he fell short of directly experiencing his essence.

Almaas explains that may psychological experiences are often mistaken for the experience of essence. One might have a powerful insight about oneself or the nature of reality, such as “I am the truth”, “love is my true nature”, and while these can be profound, liberating and highly satisfying, they only offer a momentary contact or glimpse of our true nature.

Similarly, intuition may help us to know essence and at its deeper depths it offers a sense of knowing, a certainty; however, in itself, intuition is not essence. When essence is present, there is no intuition, no mystery, there is only direct knowing and direct perception.

Essence can be confused with feelings and emotions such as love and while it is true that essence is free, beautiful and full of love and joy, it is not an emotional state. Emotions are activities that start and end, where as essence has no end, it transcends positive and negative emotions and is “an ontological actuality” (Almaas, 1998, p.26),

Even experiences of spiritual growth can be confused with presence, for example the opening of the heart chakra creates a beautiful and magnificent energy, while an important step on the journey it is not the destination; “Taking the experience of the heart chakra as the end is like standing at the door of the universe and never entering”. (Almass, 1998, p.29).

In Indian traditions, prana, kundalini and shakti are terms relating to subtle energy and the Chinese tradition there is chi and Freud formulated the concept of libido. While energy is a necessary ingredient of the consciousness necessary for inner-development, it is not the aim, nor the medium. Essence is not just energy; it is more accurate to say that essence is the source of energy.

The Loss of Essence

For Almaas, all babies are born with essence, in fact, “babies are not only born with essence, but essence is the baby that is born” (Almaas, 1998, p.84). In early life, between the ages of two and ten months, the baby is in the period Maragret Mahler termed the symbiotic phase, where the baby experiences themselves and the mother as one omnipotent system, a dual unity within one common boundary. There is no differentiation, no self and separate other, it is an experience of “merging love” (Almaas, 1998, p.94).

As the baby grows the experience of merging love is lost, a vacuum, an emptiness appears and is experienced as loss, a lack that is very painful for the child. The child’s ego is starting to form, but it is too fragile to tolerate this loss so it feels like the compete loss of the “good mother” and with this comes great anxiety and the fear of total annihilation. The child has two options: one is to bury the pain, relegating it to the unconscious and the second is to fill and cover the hole with all kinds of emotions, beliefs, dreams and fantasies, designed to regain the lost part. The filler is nothing but parts of the personality – “what ego psychologists call self-representations” (Almaas, 1998, p.95).

When this loss is felt in adult hood, we experience it as an incompleteness, a lack, a deep deficiency. People naturally yearn to regain lost essence and attempt this with their desire to connect with something external such as closeness with others, community, physical contact and so on. The loss of merging love with the mother, is one of the main unconscious drives motivating adults towards intimate love relationships. It is well-known in depth psychology that people see their mothers in their love partners, because people feel an incompleteness and long to eliminate the sense of longing and hope to experience this in a relationship. Furthermore, for people who struggled with personality development in childhood, the sense of deficiency and incompleteness is even more acute. Such people are left to try to uphold and strengthen their ego identity, trying to live up to certain standards of success or performance. In time there will be no essence in a person’s conscious experience, the beaty and wonder of essence is completely lost, instead the individual will only be aware of the personality and honestly takes themselves to be the personality. Almaas goes so far to say that “an individual who is not connected to his essence is not a human being because the human element is one’s essence. He is still a potential, a human in seed stage”. (Almass, 1998, p.101).

The Retrieval and Development of Essence

Understanding how essence is lost is crucial for its retrieval. The personality, formed through social, educational, and familial influences, often stands in opposition to essence, manifesting as misunderstanding and rejection of the person's true self.

Freud’s theory suggests the tripartite structure of the id, ego and super ego are buried in the unconscious, in fact the ego-identity (the Id) exists at the deepest level of contracted awareness or deficiency of awareness. Therefore, the “job of retrieving essence is simple and obvious: to make the unconscious, conscious” (Almaas, 1998, p.126) and this dictum is fundamental to the Diamond Approach - a method that integrates psychodynamic understanding with the retrieval of essence.

Almaas (1998) emphasises the importance of disidentifying from the personality and ego, a process often referred to as ego death, which allows people to reconnect with their essence; which is essential for self-realization. Because essence becomes buried and covered-over by personality and relegated to the unconscious, the best approach is to decrease the power and influence of the superego and replace it with awareness as much as possible, all the way to its final and complete dethronement - this is exactly why psychodynamic methods can be effective. This involves understanding the barriers created by the personality and confronting one’s emotional wounds which are often rooted in repressed emotions and memories. If the individual learns to become skilled in dealing with the superego, it gradually loosens its grip and as the structure of the superego becomes exposed to understanding, it actually helps dissolve its own structure.

True healing and personal growth require not only the understanding of personality dynamics but also the active retrieval of one’s essence, therefore, awareness training is also necessary for the person to know what thoughts are going through the mind and what sensations are in the body.

The personality does not understand death and is terrified of it because it means it’s own annihilation and as awareness expands, the personality becomes aware of its own hidden secret of death and as the fear is lost, the strength of the personality starts dropping away, allowing essence to “attain its true position as master” (Almaas 1998, p.128). A reciprocal process occurs, where by understanding the personality brings out essence and in turn, essence exposes deeper layers of the personality – this is a process of going through many small “deaths”. This process continues until awareness expands and the personality is understood, all the way to its own death and nonexistence - which naturally sets the ground for the spontaneous perception of enlightenment.

Sensitivity and subtle perceptions

Knowing essence is an embodied experience and so, a major necessary part of awareness is sensitisation to the body. Repression and defences of the ego are not only mental attitudes; they are mostly tensions and tension patterns in the body. These physical blocks are what hold the emotions and ideas unconscious. The physical aspects of essence are very subtle, very quiet and silent and involve the activation and freeing of the chakra level of energetic functioning. Achieved by clearing the mind and opening the body, which clears the chakra system. “The capacity to sense oneself must become so refined that the individual can discriminate between physical sensation and the sensation of essential substance. It is not enough for the mind to be quiet. It is also necessary for the body to be sensitive.” (Almaas, 1998, p.130).

The Pearl Beyond Price

If essence is not an insight, an intuition, an emotional state, a subtle energy or even the void, what is it then? “It is the only thing that will completely quench or hearts and the only thing that will be our peace of mind” (Almaas, 1998, p.53). It is not secret or esoteric, but it is hidden because we always look for something else. We cannot imagine a reality that is not mental, emotional or physical. It is simply there, but our minds reach far away.

Essence is not non-existence; it is experienced as a kind of substance, but not a physical substance, it belongs to a different realm, something subtle.

The moment essence is realised, a radical transformation occurs and the person knows for the first time what being is and that it is their true nature; this discovery initiates the process of inner transformation. Life is no longer the exclusive domain of the personality and as essence unfolds and expands it exposes more of the personality, bringing about knowledge and objectivity. “The discovery of essence is the beginning of the true life” (Almaas, 1998, p.177).

Reference: Almaas A.H. (1998). Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment. Weiser Books.