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The Void: Inner Spaciousness and Ego Structure
In
this book Almaas brings together concepts and experiences drawn from
contemporary object relations theory, Freudian-based ego psychology, case
studies from his own spiritual practice, and teaching from the highest levels
of Buddhist and other Eastern practices. He challenges us to look not only at
the personality and the content of the mind, but also at the underlying nature
of the mind itself.
181 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 5, 2000
23 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
A.H. Almaas
137 books206 followersA.H. Almaas is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali, the creator of the Diamond Approach to Self Realization. The Diamond Approach is a contemporary teaching that developed within the context of awareness of both ancient spiritual teachings & modern depth psychological theories.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 31, 2016
The basic proposition here is exciting because it’s crazy, and ambitious, and honestly smart.
Concept = 10 :)
Execution = 3 :(
Almaas boils down whole libraries, and centuries of study of consciousness, into a distinction that COULD bring eastern and western traditions into dialog. He sharpens up the concept of “mind" by showing how in the west we understand it based on the “content" of consciousness, while “mind” in the eastern register is a concept based on “ground.” Ok. So we have western mind as all about content/objects, and eastern mind as all about container/ground. Figure, ground. Perfect gestalt, though I guess he holds off on saying so because his interest in western thinking is analytical, NOT romantic/continental.
This whole idea is useful and internally consistent, salvaging the whole concept of "mind" from the semantic tower of Babel. Good work, Almaas! Ex-Wilberheads (i.e. me and anyone interested in this book in the first place) are all thumbs-up. This conceptual coup is NOT the kind of reductive comparative-philosophy stuff that western academic philosophers do to try to colonize Eastern concepts they don’t comprehend. It’s actually smart, and facilitates actual research into “mind” - whatever that is under the circumstances. The whole setup makes me interested in learning what else the mind of Almaas can cook up.
After a few chapters, Almaas starts asking what are the conditions, and effects, of direct experiences of space within the self. This question sounded random on the book jacket, but now makes sense. Half of his concept of “mind” is space/ground/container. And by self he means SELF! But also… self. All of it. So, is there space in Self-self? Where is there space? When is there space? Most importantly: what happens to the Self-self when emptiness on which it is based is made conscious, and under what conditions can such a consciousness be summoned?
Damn. So basically, Almaas wants your head to explode. Get in a room with him as his client, and he WILL in short order explode your head. And your heart, your gut AND your genitalia while he’s at it. This is where his credulity for the work of Doctor Freud gets very freaking problematic. I get that it’s nice to have an analytical framework on the psyche, but somehow it’s all too common for old school psychoanalysis to carry the seeds of misogyny and traumatizing methodology along with it. Thanks anyway guys, but I think I’ll just keep my experience of “space" to the book version.
The head of Almaas is already pretty well exploded - that much is clear from the light touch of his own self-signature in the writing. The consciousness behind the prose is not belabored or over-reaching, despite the fact that the project ITSELF is, well, belabored and over-reaching. I intensely dislike some of the experiences his clients go through and question their therapeutic worth, and YET, I buy that the therapist/writer is coming from a place of spaciousness in spirit and mind.
Here’s the thing about traumatizing small-selves in search of the big-Self. Eastern methodologies do it because they propose the small self is an impediment to the big Self and you want to explode it any way you can. Point taken. But traumatizing the western, psyche-based “self” is not part of a process of liberation. It’s just screwing with a person’s boundaries. Almaas says very beautiful things about boundaries within the small self (I disagree with readers who say he’s not poetic - there’s a lot of reverie here), and his recognition of the inner integrity of the ego structure makes it all the more surprising that there is a lack of clarity in practice about which sides of the self/Self he wants to explode. In this conceptual framework, it’s really hard NOT to have your cake and eat it too, but that may just leave your clients depersonalized and sad unless you have the time and money to fix their small selves after you explode them.
I read this book because I had a vague idea that Almaas is brilliant. A gem. Possibly so. But if so, this book is not his great work. Apart from the weird aspects of the case studies, too much of his effort here goes to keeping psychoanalytic theory and object relations metaphysics going. I don’t buy that these metaphysical systems add enough to the paradigm. He could back off the Freud and keep the whole western side of the project going with a more phenomenological approach still rooted in a western understanding of the psyche’s development. This really would not change the direct way that he works with clients, apart from making it gentler. And for god sakes it would help spare us the runaway thought trains on penis envy.
But there really is something here. Something potent. The direct (albeit problematic) experiences of emptiness that Almaas is able to elicit (he’d likely say "discover") in ALL areas of clients’ bodies are a little profound, and a lot contagious.
These are direct, jarring, mind-altering experiences of the body as empty space. Of the SELF as empty space. It is extremely grounding and clarifying to frame this in an understanding of the individual psyche… not just an eastern paradigm that subsumes the individual human small self - if it is lucky - into an oceanic overSelf.You can’t read the case studies without receiving some transmission. This is something real, and revealing. And this is ESPECIALLY interesting because it happens primarily in cold analytical western mindspace.
That said, because of the disconnect between his clients’ direct experience and the Freudian overlay, and the overt fascination with inciting women in particular to emotional breakdown, I can’t say the methodology is liberating. Nope. To me, it’s just as sketchy as any other shaktipat.
In the rapproachments of east and west, I’m reminded of two other teachers who easily induce experience of inner space for the big-Self, in a way that may not be *experientially* distinct from what Almaas has figured out. These are Reggie Ray’s Vajrayana teachings on space within the body, and Douglas Harding’s trippy Zen thing known as “Having no head.” These direct experiences are spiritually nourishing in that they connect one directly to the big-Self, and avoid some of the damage to the ego structure that may be done by attempts to make spiritual beginners blast off directly through portals within the small self/self image/body image/psyche.
Thumbs up to the big, creative, analytical-spiritual mind of Almaas. Thumbs down to his reliance on Freud and the Victorian-paternalist vision of the “therapeutic” paradigm. Meantime I wonder what Almaas can do with the Enneagram...
Concept = 10 :)
Execution = 3 :(
Almaas boils down whole libraries, and centuries of study of consciousness, into a distinction that COULD bring eastern and western traditions into dialog. He sharpens up the concept of “mind" by showing how in the west we understand it based on the “content" of consciousness, while “mind” in the eastern register is a concept based on “ground.” Ok. So we have western mind as all about content/objects, and eastern mind as all about container/ground. Figure, ground. Perfect gestalt, though I guess he holds off on saying so because his interest in western thinking is analytical, NOT romantic/continental.
This whole idea is useful and internally consistent, salvaging the whole concept of "mind" from the semantic tower of Babel. Good work, Almaas! Ex-Wilberheads (i.e. me and anyone interested in this book in the first place) are all thumbs-up. This conceptual coup is NOT the kind of reductive comparative-philosophy stuff that western academic philosophers do to try to colonize Eastern concepts they don’t comprehend. It’s actually smart, and facilitates actual research into “mind” - whatever that is under the circumstances. The whole setup makes me interested in learning what else the mind of Almaas can cook up.
After a few chapters, Almaas starts asking what are the conditions, and effects, of direct experiences of space within the self. This question sounded random on the book jacket, but now makes sense. Half of his concept of “mind” is space/ground/container. And by self he means SELF! But also… self. All of it. So, is there space in Self-self? Where is there space? When is there space? Most importantly: what happens to the Self-self when emptiness on which it is based is made conscious, and under what conditions can such a consciousness be summoned?
Damn. So basically, Almaas wants your head to explode. Get in a room with him as his client, and he WILL in short order explode your head. And your heart, your gut AND your genitalia while he’s at it. This is where his credulity for the work of Doctor Freud gets very freaking problematic. I get that it’s nice to have an analytical framework on the psyche, but somehow it’s all too common for old school psychoanalysis to carry the seeds of misogyny and traumatizing methodology along with it. Thanks anyway guys, but I think I’ll just keep my experience of “space" to the book version.
The head of Almaas is already pretty well exploded - that much is clear from the light touch of his own self-signature in the writing. The consciousness behind the prose is not belabored or over-reaching, despite the fact that the project ITSELF is, well, belabored and over-reaching. I intensely dislike some of the experiences his clients go through and question their therapeutic worth, and YET, I buy that the therapist/writer is coming from a place of spaciousness in spirit and mind.
Here’s the thing about traumatizing small-selves in search of the big-Self. Eastern methodologies do it because they propose the small self is an impediment to the big Self and you want to explode it any way you can. Point taken. But traumatizing the western, psyche-based “self” is not part of a process of liberation. It’s just screwing with a person’s boundaries. Almaas says very beautiful things about boundaries within the small self (I disagree with readers who say he’s not poetic - there’s a lot of reverie here), and his recognition of the inner integrity of the ego structure makes it all the more surprising that there is a lack of clarity in practice about which sides of the self/Self he wants to explode. In this conceptual framework, it’s really hard NOT to have your cake and eat it too, but that may just leave your clients depersonalized and sad unless you have the time and money to fix their small selves after you explode them.
I read this book because I had a vague idea that Almaas is brilliant. A gem. Possibly so. But if so, this book is not his great work. Apart from the weird aspects of the case studies, too much of his effort here goes to keeping psychoanalytic theory and object relations metaphysics going. I don’t buy that these metaphysical systems add enough to the paradigm. He could back off the Freud and keep the whole western side of the project going with a more phenomenological approach still rooted in a western understanding of the psyche’s development. This really would not change the direct way that he works with clients, apart from making it gentler. And for god sakes it would help spare us the runaway thought trains on penis envy.
But there really is something here. Something potent. The direct (albeit problematic) experiences of emptiness that Almaas is able to elicit (he’d likely say "discover") in ALL areas of clients’ bodies are a little profound, and a lot contagious.
These are direct, jarring, mind-altering experiences of the body as empty space. Of the SELF as empty space. It is extremely grounding and clarifying to frame this in an understanding of the individual psyche… not just an eastern paradigm that subsumes the individual human small self - if it is lucky - into an oceanic overSelf.You can’t read the case studies without receiving some transmission. This is something real, and revealing. And this is ESPECIALLY interesting because it happens primarily in cold analytical western mindspace.
That said, because of the disconnect between his clients’ direct experience and the Freudian overlay, and the overt fascination with inciting women in particular to emotional breakdown, I can’t say the methodology is liberating. Nope. To me, it’s just as sketchy as any other shaktipat.
In the rapproachments of east and west, I’m reminded of two other teachers who easily induce experience of inner space for the big-Self, in a way that may not be *experientially* distinct from what Almaas has figured out. These are Reggie Ray’s Vajrayana teachings on space within the body, and Douglas Harding’s trippy Zen thing known as “Having no head.” These direct experiences are spiritually nourishing in that they connect one directly to the big-Self, and avoid some of the damage to the ego structure that may be done by attempts to make spiritual beginners blast off directly through portals within the small self/self image/body image/psyche.
Thumbs up to the big, creative, analytical-spiritual mind of Almaas. Thumbs down to his reliance on Freud and the Victorian-paternalist vision of the “therapeutic” paradigm. Meantime I wonder what Almaas can do with the Enneagram...
July 23, 2020
If I could I would give this book 10 stars. Almaas masterfully describes the phenomenology of inquiry work and connects core ideas of spiritual teachings, such as the dissolution of self, with psychological theories of the psychodynamic/depth psychology wing. I have been involved in this kind of psychological/spiritual work for a few years now and recognized many of the states that he describes. However, Almaas expounds those states and processes in such a clear and organized manner that it will make sense for those who didn’t experience them yet (although, those descriptions might look peculiar).
October 8, 2020
A beautiful book!
If someone starts to put in writing the experience of enlightenment and will definitely struggle to find the method to express and closely end up unable to achieve the mission. but he did it.
The space is experienced when you move to unchanging the change, undoing the do, unknowing the known. This always happens when you bring all your subconscious into consciousness.
You see the see without your perception. there is no presence or absence and there is no good or bad. Everything looks new without seeing through a conditioned mind. Your conditioned mind becomes unconditioned in the slow process of going bliss.
The problem of feeling deficient emptiness was beautifully explained, Sudden feeling of hole in abdomen, feeling of absence of penis are the symptom of moving away from the space and filling up of your past subconscious problem
The author is used the word 'change to' but should be used as 'unchanged' because unchanged never belong to mind but change is belong to mind. Hence the person suffering will not experience the space unless he unchanged the change.
The 'unchanged the change' means your mind will not repeat what it learned through the experience of conditioned knowledge.
Otherwise,
A fantastic effort by the author!
If someone starts to put in writing the experience of enlightenment and will definitely struggle to find the method to express and closely end up unable to achieve the mission. but he did it.
The space is experienced when you move to unchanging the change, undoing the do, unknowing the known. This always happens when you bring all your subconscious into consciousness.
You see the see without your perception. there is no presence or absence and there is no good or bad. Everything looks new without seeing through a conditioned mind. Your conditioned mind becomes unconditioned in the slow process of going bliss.
The problem of feeling deficient emptiness was beautifully explained, Sudden feeling of hole in abdomen, feeling of absence of penis are the symptom of moving away from the space and filling up of your past subconscious problem
The author is used the word 'change to' but should be used as 'unchanged' because unchanged never belong to mind but change is belong to mind. Hence the person suffering will not experience the space unless he unchanged the change.
The 'unchanged the change' means your mind will not repeat what it learned through the experience of conditioned knowledge.
Otherwise,
A fantastic effort by the author!
July 18, 2018
Wonderful analysis of the human psyche and how our internal psychological defences against seeming threat keep us stuck in identifying with conditions rather than our essence, the inner nature of our source. Draws on many psychotherapy and spiritual traditions to explain how psychological spaciousness is a fundamental transformer that resolves our confusion when embraced and scare us witless when avoided
March 15, 2025
An attempt to bring together Western psychology and Eastern philosophy. His concept of "spaciousness" is interesting and works well in this way, but I can't get past the weird literalization of Freudian psychoanalysis that he uses -- genital holes, etc. Lots of better books out there on similar topics.
April 27, 2008
This is the book that got me interested in Almaas (Hameed Ali). Not only does the book accurately describe my experience of the Void, which I had back in the 1970-71 timeframe, but describes also the process of disidentification with ego structures that provides the context for it. Almaas may not be eloquent, but he's very precise and useful for those with some mystical experience to draw upon. He's more physician and psychologist than poet, more analytic than imagistic, which makes him a good diagnostician. I highly recommend this book for those with a penchant for Buddhism and some familiarity with object relations theory as applied to spiritual development.
February 10, 2009
A more technical approach to Almaas's ideas. Striking how so many people experience the same sense of castration, or a hole in the head, that he describes in his students, and how just allowing ourselves to feel those sensations without running away from them can have us experience inner spaciousness.
November 10, 2014
Ok, but a bit contorted IMO, in its attempt to include psychoanalytic theory. Still it does evoke a body sense of inner spaciousness. I liked Essence by the same author better.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews