The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence | 
 enlarge | Author: A. H. Almaas
Publisher: Shambhala
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 14477
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 1590305590
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.75
EAN: 9781590305591
ASIN: 1590305590
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
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Product Description
The keys to self-knowledge and deep contentment are right here before us in this very moment—if we can simply learn to live with open awareness. In The Unfolding Now, A. H. Almaas presents a marvelously effective practice for developing the transformative quality of presence. Through a particular method of self-observation and contemplative exploration that he calls inquiry, we learn to live in the relaxed condition of simply "being ourselves," without interference from feelings of inadequacy, drivenness toward goals, struggling to figure things out, and rejecting experiences we don't want. Almaas explores the many obstacles that keep us from being present—including defensiveness, ignorance, desire, aggression, and self-hatred—and shows us how to welcome with curiosity and compassion whatever we are experiencing.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Precise transformational information November 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You can only truly know it by being it. Which means, not just mind knowing. To us Diamond Approach students, the words written in this book are felt or sensed as truth. As Ken Wilber says on the back cover, "the Diamond Approach is probably the most balanced of the widely available spiritual psychologies/therapies."
Meditator October 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The writing is extremely clear and thought provoking in a meditative kind of way. It is helpful because it gives one a deep focus.
 Well, if you feel like, but not a top-priority book October 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This last opus of Almaas doesn't bring forth anything new with regard to his others books and I found it slightly repetitive and tedious. This said, Almaas stands as a great and well-inspiring teacher and so, there's always a precious material to be extracted from his books. Therefore you will not waste your time and money if you buy and read this one.
Most Accessable Work October 4, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have read 5-6 of his books. I practice Zen and tend not to like teachers that give too many answers, go into strange esoteric territory, and think that they have spiritual understanding down to a science.
Consequently, a certain amount of his teachings did not sync well with me.
So after that disclaimer, and giving this work some time to settle in, I find this book to have little to none of what I mentioned above. His deep and complex(somewhat convoluted) psychology of his diamond mind series is implicit in much of this book. And that is what makes his teachings stand out over virtually every other non-aligned spiritual teacher. This is basically a coherent summation of all of his teachings with a section after each chapter of inquiry.
The emphasis on direct inquiry into direct, everyday experience is an awsome teaching. The majority of teachers emphasize a passive abiding in some imagined state of lack of mental activity. Personally, the repetative teachings of finding a passive/detatched "witness" to my experience sits in me like indigestion. The active inquiry emphasized by Almaas and a handful of others, feels superior than disassociating from everyday human existance.
After buying this book and reading close to half of it, I thought this book was too simplistic, and bought "Spacecruiser Inquiry." Thinking that it would go deeper into inquiry than this book. Well, I could not finish that book and am now re-reading this one. I did not get into the esoteric sections of it. But like I said, in my subjective experience, I personally go for the feel of Zen.
I would like to add that despite certain things I do not like with Almaas's spirituality, there are several things that I have carried with me. First, that he challenges the assumption that one must work their butt off for decades, to "lifetimes" to realize liberation. Then, that psychology used in the right context is a leverage in spiritual practice that ancient spiritualities lacked greately. And finally, that the "man of spirit" and "man of the world" are one and that a person need not sacrifice everyday human living for spiritual liberation.
So all in all, this book is a great primer for one to learn to inquire into their present experience on their own. I would say that the seers of every spiritual tradition had an attitude of constant inquiry in common.
Extraordinary "how to" of practicing Presence July 25, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
We spend so much of our lives trying to get somewhere else. This book revealed to me how this habit of striving interferes in my inner experience of what is happening now. Learning to truly experience what is happening now does not mean being passive. It does not mean that I refuse to take action. It means that if I am sad, I experience that sadness, rather than rushing to cover it up with wishing for a different inner experience. I can take action to change circumstances without denying what my experience is with the current circumstance. Wanting my experience to be different is subtly different from wanting external change. I can work to improve communication and understanding in my family or community without denying my own inner experience at each moment whether it be frustration, anger, fear or joy. Almaas teaches with great clarity the "how to" of being present and tells us that being ourselves, being real, means being our True Nature.
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