How did you find the Diamond Approach?
I lived and worked in Holland when I first read the book Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment. It had a deep impact on me. After reading it, I wanted to be closer to the source of these teachings. I found a contact number in the back of the book. Mind you, this was the age where websites and such where not available. I don’t think the school even had a website. I called a number from Holland and they told me that some teachers were doing a workshop on “the flame” in Esalen. I had no idea what Esalen was. I went to San Francisco and took a bus in the early morning to Monterey. There were no cell phones at the time and I had no driver’s license as I did not need one in Amsterdam. The bus dropped me off on the corner of some street in Monterey where a bus was going to pick me up and take me to Esalen. It is interesting, as I am writing this, that the workshop was on the flame and the love of truth. It was this fire that I felt that pulled me closer and sent me on a journey into the unknown as there where so many unknowns on my journey. The change of country and culture, the journey to Esalen and having no idea where I was going—all of it was a big unknown. During this time in Esalen, where we learned the main practice in the Diamond Approach, inquiry, I had a deep and profound experience. It was an experience I had a lot as a child. A deep expansion and experience of boundless space that ultimately dissolved my body boundaries and familiar sense of self. As a 7-year-old child, this was deeply frightening. I remember my mother taking me to the doctor as I would often call for her when this occurred. The doctor told her that my bones where growing too fast and that was why I had these experiences. In my inquiry in Esalen, I had the same experience as I had when I was a child. A deep expansion and dissolution of my familiar sense of self. It felt like I was the ocean and everything and everyone around me. I was fascinated! And this time I was not frightened, I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand. What was this?!
After the workshop, there were no flyers or handouts and I was about to go back to Holland. My life circumstances were such that I made the decision to move to San Francisco. I did not know how to contact the school or teachers. I wandered through San Francisco with a street map with a deep knowing that I would be guided. I found a school called CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies), again not knowing what that was. I walked in and saw an announcement by a Diamond Heart teacher, teaching a class in the Diamond Approach. I got his number and called him. He answered the phone and told me my name had come up during dinner with one of the teachers that taught the workshop. He ended up connecting me with someone in the school. The Ridhwan School is a mystery school and part of my journey was the difficulty in finding this work. My flame had to burn bright to guide me to truly want to be on this path.
When you first started, what was your greatest challenge?
I was truly shaken by moving to the USA. I did not know anybody in the San Francisco Bay Area. This brought up a lot for me. The biggest challenge was my longing for “home” as I was really homesick. But when I went back to Amsterdam, I realized that it wasn’t Amsterdam I longed for. My longing became a guiding light for me. By allowing all of the feelings, the longing in my heart brought me to a deeper wisdom, the wisdom of being. By losing my familiar sense of culture and home, I found a deeper truth and home within.
What has kept you engaged with the Diamond Approach teachings?
The love for what is real and true in each moment. Words like enlightenment never meant much to me, they seemed lofty and conceptual. The freedom to be who and what you truly are, to be real, that is what kept me engaged. This is new and fresh in each moment.
What aspect of the teaching is most alive in you right now?
To be a person of spirit in a body and to not have the two be separate is such freedom.
What has been the most surprising discovery for you in the past year?
How unstoppable reality is, combusting within our individual consciousness and in its dance with the infinite mystery.
What advice/encouragement would you offer to someone ‘on the fence’ about attending an Intro event?
Why not try it; see what happens…
If you could have one wish for humankind, what would it be?
I wish for the circumstances in people’s lives to be such that they can dive into the discovery of their own being, that they can relax into their own goodness and the goodness of reality.
Doriena Wolff has been a Diamond Approach student since 1998 and a teacher since 2014. She is a teacher in the newly forming retreat group starting in June 2019, Diamond Heart Retreat Group 6. She received her certification from the “Netherlands Academy for Psychotherapy” in Amsterdam in 1993. She is a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). and has a background in movement and improvisational theater.