What is it to be human in a world that seems complex, messy, bewildering, full of competing perspectives and voices?

How can we know what is true?

One thing we need is to be in direct contact with our immediate experience.

The Diamond Approach is a path for discovering and nurturing what is real in us, for the development of the essence of our humanity.

Being Human is the first part of a three-part series of teaching introducing the Diamond Path. Each part of the series is a stand-alone retreat and does not depend on doing the other two parts.

Join us for two days of experiential learning into discovering what is true for you.

COST: $220 AUD (inc. GST)

Cost: Free

We live in very uncertain times and our world is changing by the day. What can we rely on when everything we took for granted seems to fade away?

In this webinar we will explore the fundamental ground of reality that is alive, loving, benevolent, warm and holds all of us without fail.
Our uncertain times present us with an unprecedented challenge, but also with the rare opportunity to discover the deeper truth about our world.

Do you sometimes feel that you are standing on shaky ground? Is it a struggle for you to do what you know is needed?

Everyone is looking for solid ground.

When your foundations get shaky and your centre wobbles, do you find yourself feeling foggy or confused and unable to find your footing? Or perhaps you try to compulsively control your experience through seeking a firm foundation in fixed positions, endless efforting, or procrastination.

All these struggles point to a need for real Will, the radical inner reality that enables you to find your true ground in the immediacy of the moment. With true Will, you develop the capacity to respond flexibly; you become decisive, resilient and unshakeably real.

Will gives you the determination and persistence needed to traverse the inner journey and live a real life.

Join us for this experiential teaching on finding your true inner support.

The retreat is open to the public as an introduction to the Diamond Approach path, and to students in ongoing retreat groups who have not yet had this teaching or would like to receive it anew.

Cost: $330 (inc. GST).

Cost: Free

Essence: The Elixir of Enlightenment – The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization by A.H. Almaas

Essence is the agent of transformation, the elixir of enlightenment.
It is the hope, the solution, the fulfillment.
A. H. Almaas

Chapter 1: Presence and Essence

We all know times when we feel intensely aware, awake, alive, alert.

Perhaps it’s the scent of a fragrant pink rose that captivates us, or the quiet exuberance of nature, or a vast open night sky that stills our mind. Or maybe when we witness the miracle of birth, or the deep solemnity of death. It could be in a situation of risk or danger that demands our undivided attention, strength and capacity.

These are times of Presence when we are fully awake to the immediacy of the moment. In the Diamond Approach path, we learn to re-awaken Presence, not just as a passing phenomenon or peak experience, but as the abiding ground, and guiding principle of our life.

In this webinar we will explore Presence, the defining feature and doorway to our innate, human essence with its many qualities: courage, love, compassion, vitality, intelligence, peace, power, joy, wisdom, steadfastness, value, trust, awareness, openness and gratitude.

The book Essence provides a comprehensive overview and discussion of the significant stages in the journey of self-realisation:

• Presence and essence: what it is, what it’s not
• Essence in infancy
• Loss of essence: our fall from grace, development of ego-personality
• Retrieval of essence: re-awakening essence, working through psychodynamic issues
• Development of essence: life as a mature, human being – the Pearl beyond Price.

What calls to you?

The desire for freedom, liberation, enlightenment or whatever it is called is not a response to a call from outside you. It is not a desire for self-improvement. The search is a very personal concern, an intimately personal interest in your situation. It is a response to a call deep within you. The quest does not bring about improvement or perfection, it brings about a maturity, a humanity and a wisdom.
(Essence – Epilogue, A. H. Almaas)

Start: This study group commences with the option of a free webinar on Saturday March 27 followed by eight meetings.
Dates: Eight (8) meetings April 24, May 1 & 15, June 12 & 26, July 17, Aug 7 &21
Time: 09.00 am – 11.00am (AEST Sydney)
Location: Online webinar
Cost: $175

An Essential Conversation is a conversation that is important to have. In the Diamond Approach path, an Essential Conversation is also part of learning how to bring our spiritual development, our contact with our True Nature, with us into conversation in our daily life.

A couple times each year DAA students join with people interested in spiritual development to have an Essential Conversation together.

All topics or questions are welcome, and freely participated in. The sharing in an Essential Conversation can go quite deep. Often the exploration focuses on what brought us to inner work, how our lives have been impacted by the Diamond Approach path, or something happening in our lives or in the world that we want to understand more deeply.

We welcome you to join us in a free-flowing conversation and get to know us, both students and teachers, more personally.

Date: Saturday April 17, 9.00 am to 11.00 am (Sydney time)
Location: Online – Zoom
Cost: Free

Cost: Free

A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step; and the first step starts exactly where we are.
This is a fundamental principle of the Diamond Approach: being aware of where we are in each moment.

In this webinar we will explore how to learn to be where we are in the moment and how to use that as our springboard to dive deeper into the nature of our consciousness and reality. Come join me in this exciting exploration into the now!

Our experience is all we know. It includes our thoughts, feelings, sensations, recognitions, intuitions, as well as our inner conflicts.

What can guide us through our experience, to sift the real from the unreal, and the significant from the trivial?

In the Diamond Approach path, we open to our immediate experience with curiosity and compassion. We welcome whatever is arising within us in a friendly way. And as we do this our experience opens to reveal deep patterns within us that eventually loosen and dissolve. Over time our consciousness is transformed into a living expression of what we truly are.

Befriending Your Experience is the second retreat of a three-part series of teaching introducing the Diamond Path. Each part of the series is a stand-alone retreat and does not depend on doing the other two parts.

Join us for two days of experiential learning into befriending whatever is going on for you.

COST: $220 AUD (inc. GST)

Cost: Free

How do you approach the Inner Journey?

Are you an ultralight minimalist, or do you load up the Winnebago? Do you stubbornly resist planning to keep your options open, or is your itinerary planned to the max? Do you fly solo or are you bring-a-friend?

Maybe traversing the edge of the abyss is the thrill you seek, or perhaps you are at your best at the captain’s table.

From outer space to the deepest depths – we all have our preferences and pre-existing ideas about how the inner journey might unfold. Let’s explore!

What opens the door to what is most real in us? How do we arrive at who and what we truly are?

In the Diamond Approach path our primary practice is called ‘Inquiry’, an open, open-ended, kind and curious exploration of our experience, fuelled by love.

We can begin with whatever is there in our everyday life – even if it seems mundane. If we open to our experience, and engage it, our experience will usher us deeper into the magic and the mystery of reality.

Engaging Your Experience is the third retreat of a three-part series of teaching introducing the Diamond Path. Each part of the series is a stand-alone retreat and does not depend on doing the other two parts.

Join us for two-days of experiential learning into engaging with the practice of inquiry.

Join us for two days of experiential learning into befriending whatever is going on for you.

COST: $220 AUD (inc. GST)

An Essential Conversation is a conversation that is important to have. In the Diamond Approach path, an Essential Conversation is also part of learning how to bring our spiritual development, our contact with our True Nature, with us into conversation in our daily life.

A couple times each year DAA students join with people interested in spiritual development to have an Essential Conversation together.

All topics or questions are welcome, and freely participated in. The sharing in an Essential Conversation can go quite deep. Often the exploration focuses on what brought us to inner work, how our lives have been impacted by the Diamond Approach path, or something happening in our lives or in the world that we want to understand more deeply.

We welcome you to join us in a free-flowing conversation and get to know us, both students and teachers, more personally.

Date: Saturday April 17, 9.00 am to 11.00 am (Sydney time)
Location: Online – Zoom
Cost: Free

Cost: Free

Socrates famously said, the unexamined life is not worth living. Why did Socrates put such value on examining life?

Another way to translate this sentence is: Life that is not tested, or inspected closely, for its reality, is unworthy of human beings.

So, how can you test your life for its reality? What is needed for that? And what is the value of it?

In this webinar, we will look at these questions in a way that illuminates both the work Socrates was doing, and the inquiry work now, as it is practiced in the Diamond Approach. Join us for an opportunity to inspect closely the reality of your life.

Every journey requires preparation. We gather our tools and resources and begin to read the maps that can assist us. We build an awareness of the pitfalls and blind alleys we may face. As we step onto the path of the Diamond Approach, we are introduced to some of the magical allies that will support us, the qualities of essence.

“What is essence?”, you might ask. It is what is most real in you, and it is what, through the journey, you come to know and live.

In this first DAA8 3-day retreat we will step on to the path, begin learning how to navigate the terrain, and meet some of our fellow travelers on the journey. We’d love to have you join us.

DAA has planned this retreat to be the first face-to-face retreat after the restrictions of COVID-19. Should it not be possible to proceed as planned, a retreat will be offered online for these dates and the start of the DAA8 group will be delayed until January 2022.

We will keep you informed about any change to the planned start of our new group. Please be mindful of making any airline or accommodation bookings that are fully refundable just in case it is not possible to proceed with our plan for an in-person event.

Cost: To be advised.

Cost: Free

Many of us have become accustomed to the judgmental inner voice and complacent to the pain of the criticisms.

We want to come together and begin this exploration: how might life manifest if the inner critical voice were to quiet? How would this affect my self-expression? And what is it that is needed to bring about this change?

We will explore these questions through the lens of the Diamond Approach.