Welcome to part one of dialogue 17 of the Wisdom series with the great sage A. H. Almaas, aka Hameed Ali, where we discuss that realization of the Absolute is not the end of the story. The journey continues with the journey of descent, bringing it back to the world. Welcome to Deep Transformation, Self, society, spirit, life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cloud, cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists with Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.

I'm Roger Walsh and our co host is John Dupuy. And today we are continuing our A. H. Almaas Wisdom series in which we are dialoguing with Hameed Ali, whose pen name is A. H. Almaas, and working our way systematically through an overview of his his work, his creation manifested as the diamond approach teaching. We are specifically working our way through his central text. Although he has so many texts, I hesitate to call it central, but in many ways it is the inner journey, home soul's realization of the unity of reality. And today we're at a transition point or a turning point because in our previous dialogues we've systematically worked through the earlier chapters in the book in which Hameed lays out the psychological work which is a foundation or spiritual practice which catalyzes, enables, deeper realization. And then we work through, systematically through what Hameed calls the journey of ascent, that is the spiritual path of increasing subtlety discernment into increasingly subtle layers of first the psyche or the soul and the qualities and spiritual capacities that become available. And then exploring the. What Hameed calls the boundless dimensions, those the dimensions of the ground of our fundamental or true nature, dimensions such as boundless love or. Or presence, and finally the absolute, and culminating in a realization of the absolute that is the fundamental ground of not only our true nature, but of existence, of reality. And that's a path that's laid out in various ways in the world's spiritual traditions. But Hameed is not unique, but in pointing to something beyond that, but is unique as far as I can tell, in providing an extraordinarily rich account of the possibilities of what comes after awakening and realization, even realization of the very deepest kinds. So now we begin what Hameed calls the path of descent, that is of retaining awareness that came with the realization, retaining the experience of the absolute, the most found dimensions of reality, but bring that increasingly into life until we are able to embody and express it throughout every facet of our being and our life and our relationships and work. It's a very, very profound aspect of the path that Mead lays out with a systematicity that I've seen nowhere else. Gosh, maybe I've said Enough amid. Maybe you'd like to just respond to that.

I think you said it in a good and somewhat complete way. Roger. Yeah. Could culminate in what we call a non dual view of reality or experience. But I go in detail both in the past towards the non duality and the worldview. And then great detail what the non dual view is like that it is cartitude, but different dimensions, not just consciousness. And that's it. It is much more rich than that, more interesting. And the variation in it, the details in it, helps us understand our everyday experience because it has in it the basis of all the capacities and the facet of life. So the path is the beginning. I call the journey of ascent and descent. Ascent, meaning while you described it as a matter of going as deep as possible in what we are, what reality is. And then I call that the path of realization. And then you contrast that with actualization, how to bring that to life, how to live it. Actualization happened each step. Actually each time we realize something, we need to learn how to live it in the world. Otherwise it's not completely integrated. However, what we call the path of descent shows how the reality itself, or spiritual nature, true nature, how it manifests, how it continues to manifest. Different dimension already points to actualization, that it is inherent, the true nature for it to be lived in the world. And it is sort of the way it manifests, the way it expresses itself, shows us that it's not just for us to know it, but to live it. So the guidance that is in the way the experiences emerge, the different dimensions of reality appear.

Yeah.

Hameed, you said that the realization of absolute true nature is the end of the search, but it's not the end of the journey. And a lot of traditions keep you, you know, once you have that, you know, you're done, you're good, you're one with God, or you're nirvana, you're self realized. But for you, that is not. That's the end of the search for God, if you will, the end of search for. For the ultimate. But it's not the end of the journey. And it's all about bringing it, manifesting it, the transcendence into. Into the world, incarnating it, if you will.

Yeah, you have. You need to remember that one important principle in this path is what I call being in the world and not of it. Meaning recognize I'm not of this world, not part of every day of this course of the physical world. I am beyond it. I'm spiritual, transcendent dimension. I am in the World I live that in the world. Being in the world is an important part of the path. And what I'm seeing is not just my idea that we supposed to live within the world. Many teaching habits not unique in that approach, but in that approach, the way spiritual experience manifests in its own through own intelligence shows us that's what's supposed to happen. So which is different from the Indian perspective? Indian perspective, you get realized to get the hell out of here. You see, you want to be free. Finish with life here in this path shows no, the realization is to be able to complete life, which we find of course in Christian mysticism and the Kabbalah, is to complete life. In fact, they say it as completing creation. But I think with us completing the journey is to realize true nature. For true nature to live in the world, God needs to walk on earth, wants to walk on earth, doesn't just want to create the world.

And Hameed, the last time you mentioned that you had this experience of the Absolute while you're teaching a group of students, what I thought was fascinating. And then you mentioned that you stayed in that non dual state for several years, right? And then you started coming back into the world. And my question was, well, what was that like walking around in the non dual aspect of the whole and then beginning to descend? Were you aware when you were beginning to descend of what the process was and what you were doing? Or did you have to think about it later and look back and say this is what was happening?

Well, the meaning of it showed itself gradually. I didn't know it was happening. Exactly why those new dimensions were arising at the beginning. You know, as this chapter shows, the apex of the J ascent is what I call the absolute dimension, where the absolute is the ground, the source, the essence, the home, everything and everything which is complete mystery and paradoxical nature of being and unbeing, you know, present and absent. And how from there the whole world appear as transparent layer of light. That's the sort of what I call the absolute dimension. That after realizing what the absolute is, the absolute, what I call the third dimension, which all of reality appears as an expression of the absolute. Everything we know, all perception, all capacities, all other dimension we discussed before. And also everyday life and event of everyday life, the world and its form and object, how they all appear, they appear as like a hologramic tapestry of light, luminous radiance. I call the radiance of the Absolute. And that is sort of what I call the acme of the path of ascent, where it's completely transcendent absolutely shows itself. It's a true transcendent, transcending the world. And the world is there, however it is. The world is sort of an ephemeral expression of this mysterious, unbounded, infinite depth and extent and a sense of bliss and delight and satisfaction, feeling of contentment. And the end of the search in the sense that the energy of the cyst exhausted itself, finished itself, worked out because. And partly is recognition. I mean, it's an interesting thing. It's not like at the beginning, I or anybody else in Parks knows what they're going to get, what they're looking for. You don't know it till you see it, till you experience it. They say, oh, that's what you're searching for. You know, you're searching for something and talk about enlightenment or fulfillment or meaning or whatever, but you don't know what the hell that means. You know, you might have glimpses of spiritual nature or whatever, but you don't know what you feel is search at some point becomes. And an intense endeavor becomes a primary endeavor in life and has to become the primary endeavor in life for it to fulfill itself, has to become to be the central element of living. I remember time when I didn't want to deal with the world. I didn't completely isolate. I didn't become like a gymnastic. But I spent a lot of time alone, inquiring, experiencing, writing and exploring. Because the dimension of the absolute, especially recognizing it, is not just light. It is black light, which is before light. It's luminous blackness, beautiful, luminous blackness. And the sense of it is mystery, home, intimacy and unknownness, blissful unknownness. Like I'm alone. I am just me by myself and nothing else. And not me as an individual, me as the absolute. And there are many recognition in this chapter, the chapter before it, I think, when we discuss the absolute, what's unlike. But I'm not talking not about the absolute, what I call absolute dimension, meaning how everything appears from within the absolute.

Yeah, and of course this is your school, but you talk about the spiritual work is not just transcendence. It's the integration and which the universe, the soul, the personality and being, or God finally, or come together organically and into one thing. And a lot of the work in this descent journey is integrating and putting all this, these dimensions together into, like you said, God walking with two legs on the ground, on the earth.

Yeah, I've had many perception experiences of being this vastness, walking into the street. And as I'm walking into the street, those street manifest in front of Me being created as I walk into it. I walk into my room, and the room is being manifesting as I manifest as an individual body within it. It's an interesting perception that happened like that. I mean, amazing. Magical.

Yes.

Like we're living in some other reality. You know, science fiction. Can't get there now.

Yeah. Magical was the word that came to me. Yeah.

Yeah. That's beautiful. As you. As you communicate that amid. It's also a transmission in a sense of. Obviously, my own experience is only an intimation and not. Not the fullness of what you're describing. It's like, oh, yeah, wow, you have.

A sense of that. That's good. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm trying to. I'm trying to hold back on the wows just because. I don't know. Just feels kind of silly.

But. Yeah, Hameed. But you point out there's a. There's an initial challenge that comes with the descent, and that is you pointed out that your own understanding of what was going on emerged over time. And you point out that, you know, the soul is. The soul, of course, has dissolved into the Absolute. That's absolutely fulfilled. And there's this emergence of a sense of constriction being pulled to something that isn't understood but feels. Is interpreted initially as a loss of the Absolute. And you make a very important generalization that the dramatic jumps in. I guess both psychological and spiritual growth usually feel like a loss at the beginning. Until you. Until you go through it and then you realize you didn't. It wasn't a loss.

Yeah.

Maybe you could speak to that.

Yeah. So that's. This happens as many transition and the spiritual journey that going from one thing to another feels like, especially if you're going from something wonderful to another wonderful thing, you don't know the next thing is going to be wonderful to be feeling, leaving something you like that satisfying, is it? So I'm talking about the journey of descent. Here we have ascent and descent, and it is schemata. Schema that is used by many teaching. But Ascent of Descent, it's a classic that every journey has an ascent and descent. But many teaching, they make the descent as if the individual descents and to the world. Here I make it very. It became very clear to me when I first I thought that myself too, I didn't know what descent meant. I thought, felt like I'm going to be losing the vastness of the Absolute and become this individual who sort of knows or experiences absolute and going to come back into human life as a individual human being. It took a while as what I call the dimension of descent began to emerge and recognize that no, it's not the soul that descends, it's the Absolute that descends. The Absolute comes into. Manifest into the world into different dimensions. That shows how the Absolute is integrated into everything else and different relationship the Absolute has to manifestation or to life. And in dimension, each one of them shows a different relationship. The absolute home, the absolute source, the absolute ground. How is it related to those others of the descent, which means relationship to the world as it's.

It's very similar to the story of Jesus in the Gospels, where he has this goes in the desert. Finally he realizes apparently who and what he is. Or when John the Baptist baptized him as the different Gospels the same. But then he incarnates. The Word becomes flesh. It says the Logos become flesh. The Logos was God, the Logos with God, all things were made by the Logos. And he came into the world and held that. And then he had. And you, you said this is one of the most difficult things. Even more difficult than the journey of ascent is when you have to surrender to the flow or to the will of the Logos. In other words, no longer your little thing or to God's will, if you will. And that can be challenging. And that's really the. The grist where the story really unfolds.

Yeah, that's true.

It's not. I mean, I discovered a while ago that's not my will that doing it anyway moment you get in the bond of dimension. There's no individual will, it's the ogres. But there is a distinction between the genitive ascent and decent. And that the decent feels like the ground. The mystery itself comes into the world. And of course through an individual parting individual. Because it's not happening through everybody else. I know that. I know some people, maybe that is happening through this individual body, this individual soul. And also, as I said, I was differentiating from the Eastern path, where the idea is to get to the ascent to the transcendent and just live the transcendence transcended. And then living in their life is not important, insignificant. And many gurus, as we know, they don't live much of their life. They're taking care of Manamaharishi, for instance, you know, he was taken care of. He was basically teaching, wasn't doing anything. That is more the classics. Others of course did live like in the second day Maharaj, I was a shopkeeper. He didn't. So some of them did it. But in the Western tradition, it's more than the central Thing that to live in the world, to be embodied in the world regardless of the depth we know. And the anonymous one dimension after the another shows what's that mean in what kind of integration? How is the transcendent is integrated into the manifest, the concrete?

Are there any obstacles for people who have had the self realization and the descent? Are there there trapdoors? Are there ways that you can mess up the journey of coming back into the world? And yeah, are there any things we should look out for?

In my experience it wasn't like obstacles to it. It's more like there are things that arise, concerns, loss, you know, not understanding, confusion, things like that. Because things are changing. You thought, well you got it, you're living there, that's it. You know, I was like that for years. And then something happens and things start changing and I say, well what's in the hell going on? So there's confusion, there's concern and not count things. And then however, as the dimension manifests become clear what's going on and there is a surrender to it, a surrender to what's happening that is the will of the absolute, the will of the divine happening and just for me to see.

And that was a moment I imagine of peace. Like it's okay, this is what's supposed to be happening.

Yeah, that's the interesting thing because arriving in the absolute is absolute peace and contentment. Then you think you're losing it by descent. While it turns out took a while to recognize, no, I'm not losing anything, it's just integrating other dimension back. Things that pass through, they're coming back, but they're coming back as external to me. Yeah.

And Amit, it feels like you've identified another kind of using the metaphor, another kind of dark night. Traditionally, particularly in Christianity, there's the idea coming from St. John of the Cross of the idea of a dark night of the senses. A kind of painful relinquishment of satisfaction, physical satisfactions, even spiritual consolations. And then there's a so called dark night of the soul, which was originally thought of as a further purgation, but now people like Cynthia Bourgeau reinterpreting it as a dramatic reconfiguration of identity. It sounds like as you described, the beginning of the journey of descent. It feels like another kind of dark night, a kind of dark night of the absolute of feeling or fearing that one is losing this ultimate constellation.

I'm not sure I want to do this sort of thing. I think I'll stay up here.

Yeah, I mean the Dark night is usually is on the way to the Absolute. Dark is letting go of our attachment, desire what we think is valuable so that we purely love only with the Absolute. We give up all loves, all other loves, whether evil or object or activities, until it becomes the central and overriding love. Not the dark night. Classic dark night. Here you could say, you know, mentioned Raja, that it's like a dark night. It's not as intense or as consuming as the dark night. It's more like moments of puzzlement and not understanding what's happening. And then things become clearer, not as dramatic. Dragonite is very dramatic and very intense. Can be painful long. For some people these were happening, you know, fast Succession. Succession of dimensions and aneed.

As you took us through the journey of ascent in previous chapters, culminating in the realization of the Absolute, the fundamental ground and nature of both our fundamental ground and the fundamental ground of reality. You describe the Absolute, but here you go into a further description, talking about the absolute dimension and the realization which you briefly alluded to before, that as part of the descent, there's this recognition that the all manifestation is just the. You call it the forms of subtle radiance. And there's only the mysterious darkness of the Absolute with these very subtle shimmerings. It's a beautiful description you give, but those subtle shimmerings are the entire universe. That's pretty dramatic. Yeah.

Remind me in science about quantum field theory. Discuss everything is just waves and only we see matter because we don't see things, you know, exactly.

Sort of like.

But that is really true. There's like subtle everything from the Absolute. That's what they call the absolute dimension. Like the whole world, all of manifestation is just the glorious robe of the Absolute, made out of light, variegated lights and jewels. So you see the, like the mountain and the tree and they glitter with light. They're transparent. They don't look opaque or thick or dense. It's really from that perspective you see how from its perspective, everything is pure light and not only light. It's the radius of this mystery. Because light seemed like worldly light. There's not a worldly light. It is spiritual light, which is nothing but the radiance of the mystery. It's kind of mystery in some sense. You can say completely black, completely nothing there. However, it is so black that it shines. That blackness is so extreme that it has sheen. And that sheen is the world.

That's quite a reframe, Hameed.

And Hameed, you also talked about when you're. You're coming back into being a human Being that all the things of human life, such as relationships and business and trees and all of this sexuality, it all it's. It's no longer seen as an obstacle or something to be avoided or forsaken, if you will, using the Christian word. But it becomes a vehicle for the expression of the absolute. And I find that very powerful and quite beautiful.

Yeah, I mean think about it. Everything is a creation. The manifestation of the absolute is absolutely going to create something God doesn't want there. And manifesting it for it to live through it. Because it is a vehicle for this non existent vastness to become flesh, become body, become matter. And to live without forgetting that one is so subtle is unfindable the same time living everyday life. You said work, relationship, friendship, driving your car, taking a shower, all of that. I mean paradoxical kind of experiences that happen our perception, a way of living that what lives is not the individual. What lives is something transcendent, but lived through the individual. The individual is the organ of its living, the organ of perception and action. And that goes through many dimensions. It doesn't happen from one to the other. I describe in this chapter many dimensions of descent which are different degrees, different kinds of integration within this manifest world.

And coming back into the descent as that went on, did. Did that feel like coming to the meaning and the purpose of your life? Why was I given this? You know, why did I wake up? You said a lot of most people don't. Why did I experience that? And then you start coming back in and then you're going oh I. That happened because I'm supposed to share this with the world. And you find your individual purpose that comes from the source.

Well, I was, I knew I was going to share this before then in the genuine ascent. Just recognizing I am presence, essential presence that beyond going, even the boundless dimensions just I am presence of two natures. Spiritual presence, spiritual life. That's not just for me, I need to share it. So the sharing was happening before that? Well, in the middle. I don't remember exactly. I mean that was happening in fast succession. So the journey of descent is not matter of sharing this. It's not like I don't share until a journey of decent. No, I was sharing the journey of ascent as it was happening.

You were already a teacher before that?

Yeah, I didn't know there was anything about journey after that. I didn't know. I thought I was feeling free and contented and happy and I thought, you know, I want others to feel the same thing. I wasn't given a permission by, you know, lineage hold. I didn't have the permission come from true nature itself. No, here I am. You are presented with this. Not just for you.

It's beautiful. Many places to go here. That's one thing that comes to mind here. Amit is, as I was reading about the ongoing recognition of the Absolute as the ground of all experience and activity. It's like, okay, for those of us who don't have an ongoing realization of this or even an initial realization of it, of course you laid out the fullness of the path in the journey of ascent. But one question is that. Let me back up and give an analogy here. Arnold Toynbee described the cycle withdrawal and return. That is the great sages have tended to withdraw from the world and, and do their inner work, have a realization and come back. But there's also an understanding that it can be multiple cycles of withdrawal and return. Is there in your experience and in the people you work with, is it always one cycle of ascent and descent or is it a series of cycles? Can it be series of cycles?

Well, in terms of. In this book I'm discussing the ascent into the non dual dimensional reality. This is one cycle. You go, you descend. I mean one can, you know, have ascent, what I call mini ascent or descent in each one of the dimensions we discussed, like a presence, love, whatever that, and then live that in the world that you could call that the descent. But here I'm talking about overarching, not the descent, because it's the descent of the Absolute itself. You're talking about the descent of the individual, how they experience something, they come back to life and share it or live it, whatever that happens. True, regularly. Each dimension that's integrated need to be integrated back into the world and become lived. But the interesting thing here in this chapter we're talking about the descent of the Absolute itself or the Christian language. The Father comes into this world, doesn't send his Son. He comes into this world and appears as the Son. I think that gives the Cancer Trinity a different twist. Yes, and not really three. There are several sides of the same thing.

Oh, Jesus said, I and my Father are one. Just what you said.

Exactly. Yeah. And so really we haven't discussed the different dimension of descent in the book is basically goes over each dimension of descent. And what kind of relationship shows the Absolute has to other dimensions. The dimension we discussed before we spent a meeting, at least in each one of the dimension. Here we go. They're all integrated back because we have left them as we go to the Absolute and Here they come back. They come back as the outer garment of the absolute mystery and amid.

You talk about authenticity here and give it a different twist from the way, for example, the existentialists do. And you say, and I'll quote, to authentically be oneself is to abide in what the logos, dynamism of being happens to be manifesting at that moment. You say one needs only to recognize what is manifesting in experience and realizing that that experience is the dynamism of the Absolute. And you may point out some implications that all we are called to do is simply to abide in as. To recognize and abide as, and allow whatever experience is emerging. Yeah.

That has become the modus operandi of this path, which is the practice is to be where we find ourself. Let it be completely abide in it and let it reveal its truth instead of trying to do something to it.

And you're no longer trying to achieve this state of Nirvana or bliss or oneness. You go with the flow and you surrender to already being achieved.

Right.

But you don't want to go back there. You.

You just.

No, it's not a matter of going back or not. And you know, you realize you don't leave it, really. And then Nirvana comes into Samsara and becomes one with it. And the Buddha saying, samsara and Nirvana are actually two sides of the same thing. And that's what realization that shows that to be the case, that Nirvana comes into the world of Samsara and fills it.

Yes. In this chapter you call it Quintessence, where the transcendent and the imminent are one.

Yeah. And this part of the journey of descent. I discuss several dimensions that arise after the Absolute, where each one of them is an integration into the Absolute appears integrated with another dimension of two names, and in a dimension of its own manifestation. Now, we have discovered before at the ultimate, now, as you know, one surface, one layer out of the Absolute. And so there's integration, different dimensions that arise. That's why I call them. I talk about the core dimension, the integrated dimension, and I get to what I call the quintessential dimension, which is the full integration, the full complete integration of all dimensions into the Absolute. And that is what I call the quintessence. The quintessence is, but interestingly is what some of the Eastern teaching take to be the true nature, the ultimate nature. I think, for instance, I won't be surprised of Dzogchen or Mahamudra think of the quintessence as the ultimate, or what they call the dharmakaya, because it is the absolute, as is not separate from awareness, from presence. Like absence and presence are two sides of the same thing. They're completely inseparable, absolute, which is complete, non existence. Nothing really and nothing can be found. It's a mysterious something. Nothing can be found. It has such power, most power there is, for nothing at all. It is very paradoxical how that happens actually, because there's nothing. It erases everything in its way, it's that powerful. But most people think for something to have power, it has to be something. It has to have substance. The absence of substance is what gives us its power. Absence of substance make everything lose its substance as it touches. And here, however, this absence of substance integrates substance, integrates awareness, integrates present, integrate love back into itself to make one whole and that then all of it together, completely co emerging, completely interpervading, without separation, without distinction in what I call the quintessence. Okay, I have a have a question.

And part of this journey of dissent, when you're there, it calls on you to express this in relationships and action, in service and contribution. Again, we touched on it. You're sharing what you're teaching to the world. But people who are in this process are naturally going to be manifest certain traits such that being of service, being compassionate, being kind, this sort of thing. And is there such a thing as false dissent by someone who claims, you know, that they've reached the top of the mountain, but when they come back, they really haven't done the work or they're really not something's amiss. Stay tuned for part two of our 17th dialogue with Hameed Ali, where we continue to explore the journey of dissent, the necessity of this journey and the challenges that arise. Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved, as we are moved, being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to mainly to get this podcast out to more people because the bigger audience have, which is steadily growing, but the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done that a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple. And I do that with podcasts that I support and I find it's very satisfying. So thank you for your help, thank you for your presence and thank you for all you are and all you do. We love you.