went to a seminar the other evening. In a way, it was a seminar I’ve been to many times before – in other ways, it was the first.

It’s always a new moment.
It was a book launch by the founder of a relatively new spiritual tradition called the Diamond Approach, and the title was: The Inner Journey Home. I’ve never heard him talk before; I’ve tried reading his books but can’t get past the first page of any of them. The origins of A. H. Almaas’ thinking were Californian workshops on inner growth and openness in the ’60s, and a succession of spiritual teachers in the ’70s, in disciplines as diverse as gestalt therapy, Freudian Object Relations, Sufism, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, enneagrams, Krishnamurti, and Gurdjieff.
In the introduction to his first book, he writes: “For close to 20 years now, Being has been continually revealing to me its many facets and dimensions, always in spontaneous and unexpected revelations. This has transformed my consciousness and life in ways I never dreamed of, and led me to states of realisation I never imagined existed.”
I can’t bear this kind of talk. I really can’t bear it. He obviously believes it, he’s no charlatan, because he makes no claims that aren’t rooted in his own experience, nor that run counter to the essence of most spiritual traditions on the planet. But it feels like I’m on the outside of a glass citadel, looking in. I don’t get it. I so want to get it. Whatever it is. The flash of knowingness, the quality of “Being” that is the hallmark of a successful spiritual practice. I know that the answer lies within us, but then if that is so, why were there a good six hundred people in the hall listening to him? It’s the eternal paradox of religion.
I’ve spat out the evil that is Catholicism. I’ve tried Transcendental Meditation (good technique, but drop the plans for World Government, please). I’ve been on more self-development courses than are decent. I’ve done Kleinian, Integrative, Gestalt, and Psychosynthesis therapy, and studied Jung and Freud. I’ve done 12-step groups. I’ve done the I Ching, and a bit of Tarot. I’ve tried Tai Chi and Karate. The only therapy that I have time for is the one I practice, Psychosynthesis, because it seems to be populated by nice enough people who aren’t up their own arses and don’t seem to preach. The only language that helps me understand my unscratchable itch, that crack in the well, the hole in the soul, is the mythological storehouse of astrology, but it doesn’t make the journey less painful. Sometimes it’s like having open-heart surgery without anaesthetic, but with a running commentary to explain what it all means. Thanks, not. Prometheus chained to the rock, liver plucked out daily, helpfully regenerating at night. Why? Because he defied the gods. Hollywood deems the gods irrelevant for a modern telling of Troy, and so they got rid of them, as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al seem not willing to accept any higher moral authority, and mask profane imperialist invasions with the language of liberation and democracy. One does not have to believe in the Olympian gods to recognise that something sacred has been violated in old Mesopotamia, or, while we’re at it, that something is morally wrong about genetically modifying food for profit. And for committing the crime of hubris, believing oneself to be godlike, there’s always a price to pay. The virtue of the old myths is that they are still as relevant to the psychology of the modern world as they ever were, as metaphor, illustrations of age-old human behaviour patterns that recur, generation after generation.
The meeting was in the London Friends’ Meeting House, which always augurs well in my book. If stillness is a spiritual quality, then Quakers practice what they preach, the only creed that gets my vote, at least on paper. (One of the most moving funerals I ever went to was Quaker – silent, reflective, harrowingly beautiful.) When I arrived, I was gobsmacked to see no less than three former teachers of mine, including my former therapist, sitting in a row behind the registration desk, like the three Goddesses in the Judgment of Paris. Another teacher, from years back, I saw inside. One wouldn’t want to be a conspiracy theorist. But it was a bit odd.
You see the thing is, after that fine start, I was prepared for revelation. I was aching for an “aha!” at least. I so wanted to be evangelised, against my better judgment. Dragged kicking and screaming to enlightenment. I wanted, at least, to know something I didn’t know. I wanted to be saved. I wanted… I wanted. Something.
He spoke quietly, with authority, and I shut my eyes in the hot hall and felt quite calm. He spoke of presence and being and awareness and qualities of Self and spiritual tradition and it was pleasant enough. When he stopped, there were a few questions from the floor and that was it.
I left feeling oddly cheated. Afterwards, I felt this insatiable urge to do all sorts of naughty things. The dark underworld being a sort of compensation for the light? A reaction to experiencing the enormous collective yearning for enlightenment in that room? A refusal to be swept away by any movement? An aversion to being calm?
I ended up having two pints in a sleazy bar, chatting to the staff, and going home alone.
Did you know that hives produce beautiful honey in cities? It’s the constant variety, you see. Brings out the best in them. Busy, busy bees. Never a dull moment.