The Diamond Approach does not look at the spiritual path in terms of achieving goals. Instead, the teaching is more oriented towards discovering the truth of reality, in as deep and total a way as possible, and then to live it in your ordinary life. Reality is considered too subtle and complex to be reduced to goals. From the perspective of this open view, the path of self-discovery and self-awareness can unfold in you as various kinds of realisation. The freedom and embodiment arising from these realisations integrates your spiritual nature and your everyday functioning. One way to express this perspective is that you are “in the world but not of it”. This means that on the Diamond Approach path you participate in human society and contribute to it, while not being captured by the world and forgetting your true spiritual nature.

No. The Diamond Approach is a path of self-discovery that works toward assisting you to develop your human potential through experiencing reality and freedom, not the development of a belief system to follow. As a matter of fact, the Diamond Approach investigates all beliefs that you hold dear and helps you liberate yourself from their constraints. The aim is first to recognise your beliefs about reality, and then to know reality directly and discover its immediate truth. Beliefs are understood to often reflect unconscious orientations to your life that limit your openness to what you are experiencing. Students are welcome from all religious and spiritual traditions, and many continue in and deepen their understanding of the religious or spiritual tradition in which they have previously participated.

No. The Diamond Approach is not a type of psychotherapy, nor does it offer psychotherapy services. However, many students have engaged in psychotherapy prior to becoming involved, and some are concurrently engaged in psychotherapy and their work in the Diamond Approach. While the path combines time-honoured spiritual practices with modern psychological understanding its orientation, view, methodology and knowledge differ fundamentally from the fields of psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy. Any techniques or knowledge of the Diamond Approach that resemble those of psychotherapy are due only to the broad scope of the Diamond Approach, which incorporates the whole spectrum of human experience.

The HU symbol, which is part of the Diamond Approach Australia logo and is visible throughout this website and the Ridhwan School, is an octagon that contains four interweaving HU’s written in Arabic script. Sufis have long considered HU to be the most secret name of the Divine, pointing to the deepest mysteries of reality. In this teaching, we use this symbol in recognition of and as an invitation to experience the unity of everything. As a symbol of unity, HU also represents the realisation of the complete human being, who simultaneously is one with Being and functions as that in the world.