A real relationship is, by definition, open, which means that it is open to further developments. When a relationship is open and real, we have a better opportunity to discover deeper dimensions of reality, sometimes more powerfully than just when we are by ourselves. This is one reason why having a teacher is more powerful than working by oneself. A relationship with another person—whether in a friendship, an intimate relationship, or a marriage—can be powerful for our inner journey if it is real and open to new possibilities. An energizing dynamic can occur when two forces are interacting with each other—two souls, two vortexes of consciousness, blending their energies together. You are not simply adding one to the other—it’s not like one plus one equals two. It is more powerful than that. This is due to what we call mutuality, where there is not only interaction but also mutual interest—a common interest in the truth and a mutual desire to know one another. This shared interest in the discovery of the truth becomes a mutual love for discovering each other at the same time as we discover ourselves.

The energies of the chakras are the basic raw energies of emotional states. When a chakra is active or “open,” we directly experience the basic subtle energies that go into the makeup of the various emotions, instead of the emotions themselves. That is why we experience emotional freedom when the heart opens: the energy frees us, for the moment, from the conflicting emotions that usually fill our hearts. The basic energy of the heart chakra is experienced as love, joy and bliss.

Part of this work is to understand the instincts, to be free from unconscious biological necessity. Depth psychology formulates and recognizes two instincts: the survival instinct and the sexual instinct. We add to these two a third one: the social instinct. All three instincts involve the physical survival of the human organism. They are organized by the nervous system and the lowest three energetic centers, the first three chakras. The survival or preservation instinct is organized by the first chakra at the perineum. The sexual instinct is organized by the second chakra at the base of the spine. The social instinct is organized by the third chakra at the solar plexus. They all function for physical survival but employ different energies and different modes of experience and functioning.

Essence is something fundamentally different, more substantial and deeper than energy, whether it is electromagnetic, chemical, chi, prana, kundalini, shakti, libido, orgone or whatever. However all these energies must be experienced and freed for a person to move into the realm of being, our essential and true nature.

One of the specific practices of presence that we recommend is to sense your body. The body has many centers, and the main ones we work with in the Diamond Approach are the belly center, the heart center, and the head center. The core of the primal energies that make up our life force is located in the lower body, and the belly center is the organizing hub for all of these energies. The belly has an energetic center, an energetic spiritual center. It is located in the center of the belly about three fingers below the navel and, depending on the size of your belly, anywhere from two to five fingers inside. The Japanese call it the hara center and the Chinese call it t’an tien. We call this point the Kath, a term taken from a Central Asian tradition. The belly center is also the grounding center: Your consciousness is like a tree, and the roots of the tree are in the belly. So we will be referring to this center as both the Kath and the belly center. Because the belly center is related to the energies of the life force, we often have you sense your belly. As you become more aware of that area, and the belly center becomes more developed, more present, you become more in touch with the raw energies of your life force. Then you can better access what we call instinctual energy—the various energies of your survival, sexual and social instincts.

The chakras work with the energy that is the raw material for emotional states… Prana is the energy connected with breathing and hence with vitality… Kundalini is the main energy that fuels the chakra system. It is connected with sexual energy, but it is sexual energy only when operating in the lower chakras. In the heart chakra it is experienced as love; in the head chakras it is experienced as light. Shakti is the same energy but in a different form, that of power. It is experienced as having more of an electrical quality than kundalini.

The dynamism of True Nature is the source of all energies, all forces, all power that we experience and feel and see in the universe. This creative dynamism not only accounts for our movements and actions and thinking, but generates the wind and the weather, the movement of the planets and the creations of the galaxies, the stars, the volcanoes, the hurricanes, everything. Some of them we might feel are beautiful, wonderful things as long as they don’t threaten us, and some of it can be devastating. But even hurricanes seem miniscule when you compare them with star nurseries where billions of stars are being created. I am giving you a sense of the amazing sea of energy and dynamism that we’re sitting on. It’s not just idle energy; it throbs and creates and destroys in a complete, orgasmic kind of climaxing. The Quintessence is constantly climaxing—it’s the ultimate Tantric adept. Each instant creation and destruction discharges the old and creates the new with complete abandon and release going all the way back to the absolute stillness of nothingness.