Runaway Realization is the first in a series of books in which A. H. Almaas articulates what he refers to as the View of Totality which addresses dual and nondual realization, unilocal realization, the freedom vehicle and the limitless potential and possibilities for human consciousness after classical
enlightenment.
"On the spiritual path, we can have various experiences of totality. We might experience it as the soul or individual consciousness being aware of itself as the totality of our experiences and the totality of what we are. The individual soul, with its organs and capacities and histories, is where all our experiences happen. So we might experience the soul as a kind of totality. Or we might experience totality in a boundless dimension-not being the individual soul but being the totality of the universe. That experience usually appears in what is called boundless or nondual experience. When we are experiencing that kind of totality, we are everything. We are the totality in the sense that we are the nowness or the awareness that contains everything-all thoughts, all feelings, all objects, all phenomena are part of this totality. Sometimes when we experience that kind of nonduality, we are the totality in the sense that we are all of that." - A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization, ch. 8
"The understanding of emptiness in these talks and discussions is closest to the understanding of emptiness posited by the Prasangika Madhyamika tradition of Mahayana Buddhism-that of the absence of inherent existence of self and phenomena. However, this dimension, referred to as that of the absolute, is not simply emptiness. It is emptiness totally inseparable and not differentiable from presence, which is the fullness of self-knowing being. The realization of this dimension reflects the paradoxical nature of classical enlightenment, by which one recognizes that one has always been this unsullied, empty ground of luminosity; and this recognition resolves experientially the dichotomy of existence and nonexistence." - A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Five, INTRODUCTION
"What is revealed as we do this is that reality is far more indeterminate, far more mysterious than anything we can conceive of. No single view-whether dual, nondual, unilocal, or something else entirely-can capture the dynamism of reality. Freedom is the freedom of reality to reveal its dynamism, to express itself as form, as formlessness, as both, or as neither. No single feature and no combination of features can exhaust the potential of reality. It is a mystery without end. Reality is always revealing itself by knowing itself; and knowing reality and living it becomes the fulfillment of our life. The purity of reality expresses itself to us, through us, and as us, all at once. Our life becomes the life of true nature-the purity at the heart of reality-living consciously and expressing itself as us, using us by being us. This is the miraculous heart of human freedom." - A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization, Introduction
"The relationship of the soul to the macrocosm, and specifically to its absolute essence, becomes clearly delineated by the advent of a new diamond vehicle that manifests as part of the journey of descent, the freedom vehicle. It clarifies where lies the true freedom of the soul, and how this freedom is inseparable from the life of service. Among the many elements of the infinite wisdom inherent to this vehicle, one that is paramount to the soul in terms of her life and development, is the objective and precise wisdom regarding the soul’s role in the cosmic manifestation. What is important about it for our life on earth is that it contains the objective wisdom of what an individual being is in relation to the cosmos, and what his or her function is in actuality. The freedom vehicle clearly indicates this wisdom, which reveals our presence as a direct manifestation and extension of the absolute into cosmic manifestation. It is the absolute, nonlocal, and nonextended; yet it is a form localized in the world of time and space. It is a bridge between timelessness/spacelessness and time/space. It is itself beyond time and space, but protrudes into them, bringing through its emanations the richness inherent in the absolute." - A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home, ch. 23
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