The Alchemy of Freedom The Philosophers' Stone and the Secrets of Existence

Well-known spiritual teacher A. H. Almaas uses the metaphor of the mysterious philosopher's stone to discuss a tremendous liberating power that leads to endless enlightenment

For millennia alchemists sought the philosophers’ stone, the miracle substance believed to be the key to all the secrets of existence. The quest was fueled by some of the prime questions of human existence: What am I? Why am I here? How has this world come to be?

A. H. Almaas shows that the tremendous liberating power of the mysterious philosophers’ stone is closer to us than we realize. In fact, it is the true nature of all reality—in all times and all places, without being limited to being anything in particular. Through the philosophers’ stone, real transformation can happen, our consciousness can become free, and we can open to all the possibilities of reality. 

Almaas discusses the factors that are involved in igniting the catalytic property of the philosophers’ stone and then begins to unpack the properties of true nature when it is free of constraints. Finally, we are left with the revelation that true nature is endlessly knowable, and yet nothing we can know or say about it exhausts its mystery and power. The result is a new understanding of what liberation and practice are—and a view of what it’s like when seeking ceases and life becomes a process of continual discovery. We begin to appreciate that the freedom of reality expressed in the complete and fulfilled life all human beings seek—and few find—is actually the simplicity of the ordinary.

A. H. Almaas is the pen name of Hameed Ali, the Kuwaiti-born originator of the Diamond Approach, who has been guiding individuals and groups in Colorado, California, and Europe since 1976. He is the author of many books, including The Power of Divine Eros, The Unfolding Now, and Runaway Realization.