We live in a world of mystery, wonder, and beauty. But most of us seldom participate in this real world, being aware rather of a world that is mostly strife, suffering, or meaninglessness. This situation is basically due to our not realizing and living our full human potential. This potential can be actualized by the realization and development of the human essence. The human essence is the part of us that is innate and real, and which can participate in the real world.

This series of books, Diamond Heart, is a transcription of talks I have given to inner work groups in both California and Colorado, for several years, as part of the work of these groups. The purpose of the talks is to guide and orient individuals who are engaged in doing the difficult work of essential realization. - Author's Preface

This teaching is invaluable to the student on a spiritual path who seeks to actualize the full potential of inner and outer life. Almaas explores the various issues that confront the student working through egoic delusion toward a living understanding of oneness, and describes the qualities and characteristics required for integration of spiritual truth into human life.

Realization of Being is not simply realization of the true self, but also realization of reality—of primordial true nature, more fundamental than the realms of form and mind. The second theme in Indestructible Innocence is the movement to and exploration of this nonconceptual realm. This is the dimension of Being “beyond form,” in which there is pure awareness with no conceptual content. This dimension is a radical departure from the perspective of egoic reality, and even from the view of manifest Being as fundamental ground, which arises as various essential qualities. Almaas conveys vividly the quality of awareness that Krishnamurti called “freedom from the known” —awareness unfiltered by concepts. It is this “empty” awareness that is most often associated with Buddhism, particularly Zen. This part of Indestructible Innocence clarifies the similarity between the Diamond Approach and other spiritual traditions in relation to the basic dimensions of reality that are experienced on this path. - from the Introduction

Chapters

1. Clarification of Personality (Read Now)
2. Being and the Search
3. Human Maturity
4. Maturity and Truth
5. The Integrated Human Being
6. Oneness and Human Life
7. Realization of Absence
8. Bare Bottoms on Ice
9. The Creative Now
10. The Two Realities
11. The Courageous Heart
12. Our Knowledge Is the World We Live
13. Inside and Outside
14. Concepts and Thinking
15. Physical Reality and Nonconceptual Reality
16. The Universal Mind
17. Selflessness

Available at Shambhala Publications or most book retailers.