AH Almaas – spacecruiser inquiry

Spacecruiser InquiryA Public Talk at St. Johns Church, April 2002Join A.H. Almaas in this very special teaching given at St. John’s Church in Berkeley on the eve of his book signing talk for Spacecruiser Inquiry. A.H. Almaas relates some of the stories of his personal experience in the development of his understanding of inquiry.90 minute DVD – Zero Region (NTSC/PAL hybrid)A talk accompanying the book Spacecruiser Inquiry. In this book Almaas explains his version of socrates questioning.. extremely helpfull technique for work on the Self..topics: inquiry, anecdotal experiences from AH Almaas, spirituality, psychology,truth, work on Selfhttp://www.ridhwan.org/videos.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._H._Almaasthe book:http://www.amazon.com/Spacecruiser-Inquiry-Almaas-Diamond-Bo…Wikipedia on Almaas’s technique of inquiry:InquiryThe Diamond Approach centers on practice of investigation of the self, experience and perception. “Inquiry” answers the question posed by Socrates: “How does one set up as the object of one’s investigation, that about which one knows nothing?” One starts by wanting to find out, living a question, while recognizing preconceptions, preconditions and expectations as to the nature of what one may learn and instead attending to one’s immediate or present experience. While not explicitly acknowledged as such, Inquiry in effect combines the practice of Edmund Husserl’s “transcendental phenomenological reduction, or epoché”, with Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic exploration. An important feature of inquiry is that a person learns to be aware of both the content of experience (emotions, thoughts, sensations) and the attitudes and reactions towards it. In this way the subject-object dichotomy is transcended and one learns to relate to oneself without having to create inner splits. Open-ended Inquiry is both a path to, and the state of, a realized person and in time is understood to be a self-revelation of the mysteries of Being.MotivationThe main motivation for embarking on the spiritual journey in this approach is love for the Truth. “Truth” refers to seeing things as they really are, which ultimately comes down to recognizing Being as the true nature of everything. Love for the truth therefore combines the traditional bhakti and jnana perspectives on spirituality.And a useful review on Amazon:The title of this book is, to be honest, a little silly. But after getting over Almaas’ metaphor I found this to be one of the best spiritual practice books I have come across. Inquiry, when done properly, is an amazingly powerful practice. Almaas takes you step by step into a deeper understanding of how to do this practice. That said, this book is not for everyone. I would suggest that someone should have read Diamond Heart One and Two (for most people these are a better starting point than the Diamond Mind series) and also have at least a couple of years of sitting meditation experience before working with this book. Without that foundation, this work might only engage you at the psychological level. This is also a “workbook” with lots of inquiry exercises-take your time with it. I would suggest setting aside some time to work with it two or three times a week. The inquiries will take 15-20 minutes each and shouldn’t be skipped if you want to engage this work fully.