The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization (Diamond Mind)

This book is very interesting, although it is quite repetitive and anyone familiar with Almaas's ideas will know what I mean if they come to read this, particularly the first section.

Nevertheless, he gives a very good intellectual account of narcissism, although my emphasis is on the word 'intellectual', for what I think he is trying to do is bridge the gap between academia, which is not typically interested in spirituality, and people who are reading the book to further their own quest.

So the style is much dryer than usual and he has an annoying use of the pronoun 'we', which is to be found also in 'Pearl Beyond Price' - I think somebody once referred to it as the use of 'we, the King of England', and that's quite how it sounds.

But the material is very insightful and useful, and provides, as I say, a synthesis of the academic and spiritual perspectives.


A profound understanding of transformation to One Taste....   April 5, 1999
17 out of 18 found this review helpful

A. H. Almaas' Diamond Way is a path to enlightenment that Ken Wilber has praised. This book is the masterpiece in a series...

Jack Kornfield: "Almaas is one of the most significant voices for a new and remarkably integrated spiritual vision. His work connects the personal, the universal, the psychological and the spiritual not as pieces put together, but as the inseparable mandala of the sacred that we are. I respect his work to the highest degree and commend it to anyone interested in living the life of the spirit."

John Welwood, Ph.D.: "A.H. Almaas is an astute and brilliant explorer of the common ground of psychology and spiritual development. Almaas provides a much larger and more satisfying framework for understanding the quandries of self, identity and the resolution of narcissism. He shows how the universal narcissism of everyday life is an incomplete stage of development that can only be overcome through realization of one's deepest, most essential nature. This is a book to study, to contemplate, to live with, and to use as a guide on one's journey."

Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.: "Almaas has given us a powerful unfoldment of a new field of study. This pioneering work renders outdated both the psychologist's traditional avoidance of deeper dimensions of experience and the mystic's dismissal of psychology. Almaas's tour de force is must reading for anyone who is seeking a more profound understanding of human experience."

Harry Hunt, Ph.D.: "Almaas's The Point of Existence is a supremely original and unique work at the interface of spirituality and pscyhoanalysis. It will be of immense significance for anyone involved in a spiritual path. The promise and challenge of this work for both transpersonal and psychotherapeutic orthodoxies is immense. It will be studied and debated by psychologists, spiritual practitioners, and theologians for years to come."