How did you find the Diamond Approach?
In 1976 I was a postdoc fellow at University of Colorado Medical School and a friend told me about an alternative sort of work that was just starting in Boulder. I was doing well in my science career but was beginning to feel unsettled and unsure whether it was really my calling. I was invited to make a phone call to Hameed (Hameed Ali, founder of the Diamond Approach) to see if I might be allowed to attend a meeting and found him to be welcoming and sort of mysterious at the same time. Not being one to seek out psychological work, I was intrigued and arranged to meet him.
When you first started, what was your greatest challenge?
As a science guy, I was naturally skeptical and exacting about understanding what was happening with this group of people. They were all successful people from many walks of life and I felt welcomed by them, all of whom also seemed to be finding what we were doing to be sort of “out there.” It took some time for me to settle in, but it was mostly Hameed’s exacting nature, not the least of which was his exacting understanding of how to bust me on many of my learned ideas. This made me feel I wanted to know what he seemed to know.
What has kept you engaged with the Diamond Approach teachings?
The understanding of myself kept deepening as we explored so many elements of self-image and belief and corresponding realities. I was hooked by this, both in terms of what I felt was an important furthering of science in human life generally, and for the furtherance of my own emotional unfolding and learning about myself.
Secondly, I decided to leave my bioscience career simultaneous with training under Hameed. I had no idea where it would lead but felt I was on a track I couldn’t resist.
What aspect of the teaching is most alive in you right now?
Right now I’m engaged with teaching a beginning group in Boulder. After many years of travel teaching around the US and Europe where I have taught most or all of our advanced materials, I’m enthralled with teaching “beginner” materials, recognizing that each of the early teachings are deeply important and must be taught well. They are not just foundational for more advanced teachings, but are precise elements, required actually, for living a natural, interactive, and happy human life. Also that these materials appear very differently from the view I seem to have developed over these many years.
What has been the most surprising discovery for you?
That the work on the ‘basic’ qualities of Being, what we and others call the Lataif, is anything but basic. I am reteaching them from new angles.
What advice/encouragement would you offer someone “on the fence” about attending an intro event?
Don’t hesitate to take the time to explore what we’re doing. In a very short time you will find out whether this orientation we have is right of you. But you won’t find out by staying on the fence and you may miss something truly invaluable, even if you don’t stay with it.
If you could have one wish for humankind, what would it be?
I would wish for humankind to gain more appreciation for experiential truth. Whether we engage that appreciation by taking it all of the way to deep spiritual/philosophical mysteries, or simply to become more honest and open in normal daily conventional human life, recognizing the felt truth in any situation will tend to open up experience and relationships in ways that our usual conditioned mind simply can’t grok. Humankind on this track can only lead toward greater humanity, pleasure and aliveness.
Duncan Scribner was born in Boston and has lived in Colorado since 1972. He came to Colorado for graduate education in Biosciences at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Med School. After several years' work in biosciences research, he redirected his interests and has worked exclusively as a Ridhwan teacher since 1984. He and his wife Susanna are about to celebrate 25 years of marriage and have two children, Elliot, 20, and Nicole, 15. Having spent his childhood in the Boston area, he and his family return there for summertime vacations, most particularly involving boating and fishing in Vineyard Sound. In winter he and his family ski and hike, in addition to being involved volleyball parents for Nicole. They have two dogs, Sasha, an eleven-year-old German Shepherd rescue, and now a 15-week-old German Shepherd pup named Hazel. One fish, a Plecostomus named Marshall, is always kept unaware of his activities in Vineyard Sound. Duncan has also engaged some occasional real estate development in Denver and Boulder over the years. Getting back into biking is on his radar.