Welcome to part two of the 17th dialogue in the A. H. Almaas Wisdom series in which we continue to explore the journey of descent, which does not mean going down, but means to ground the realization of our true nature. Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society, Spirit, life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists with Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy. Okay, I have a, have a question. And part of this journey of dissent, when you're there, it calls on you to, 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 as 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 and they end up probably hurting. They end up hurting more people than they help. So, and this true descent is characterized by what are the fruits of it? What, what comes through the person who's.

Doing this Antichrist, huh? Pretending I'm a guy. Well, I imagine there are. I'm. I don't know any myself about false descent. I think what happens is not usually not a false descent, but more from what I see, my observation, various teachers and you know, people who claim realization is either an incomplete realization of the absolute or the descent is descent not from the absolute, but from a earlier dimension or sometime incomplete integration of the absolute or the descent to really integrate the absolute fully and all the dimension, descent fully. That's unusual. I don't expect it from most of my students. For instance, you know, it's good if they get some of that, I mean, just a little bit of that person. Life will be wonderful. So in terms of being a teacher, representing oneself as teachers, it's good that you present yourself with what you really know from experience, what you embody. There are not many teachers. I could listen to them and their students asking their answer. I could tell they don't know what they're talking about. And they know what they don't know. They're talking. They pretend as if they know the answer when they don't know it. I mean, this happens so frequently. Sometime I want to call the person, tell them, what are you doing? You know, but you know, that's how it is. You know, most of, most of the time the Realization is incomplete of the absolute itself, of being or consciousness. People, oh, I'm real, I'm awakened. I'm realizing consciousness, yeah, but not necessarily completely. Meaning there are still some issues, obstacles to it, destruction, to it. Distortion that hasn't been worked out, hasn't been cleared away. So yes, you have some knowledge and experience, but it's not. Not pure, it's not clean. So because of that, the descent, which is coming into the world and people think of it, the descent is when you teach, which is not. How I look at it is that like when I first started teaching, some people call it the Descent. I didn't. I didn't call it decent at that time. I thought something because I knew something. And I got the sense that not just for me, actually just for myself. And kept increasing and expanding the realization while I'm teaching. So what I have to teach, it kept expanding. And so I was actually teaching what is expanding in me more and more. So my teaching became more and more expanded as my experience itself expanded. I didn't wait. I'm all done for me to teach, otherwise I would be waiting a long time. That was a process that took about 20 years. Wow.

Yes. I wrote a book, Essential Spirituality. And I waited many years for it until my wife eventually to write. And until eventually my wife said, well, you realize that the current rate of progress, you'll. You'll die long before you start the first page. So that got me moving.

That's. I mean, that brings into the question of the books I wrote in the books. You know, I have several series of books right at the beginning when I realized I am to teach, I am to give away. It's not just for me, because it became clear what I was learning was not just for me, but some of it I didn't really need. I didn't have thing for it to respond to. In myself there came an understanding what I should also how not to. How to give it out in writing. And I had in my mind, when it became very clear, three series of books I was supposed to do, you know, the Diamond Body, the Mind series, Diamond Heart series and the Diamond Body series. And I finished them about 20 years ago or something.

That wasn't the end.

That wasn't the end. I finished those. And then after that, that was after the Journey of Descent, the other revelation that emerged that occasioned more books. You see the book about love we're talking about gonna come out next year. It's part of the Journey of Ascent. It is about the absolute. It is about the Realization of the Absolute as the inner beloved. The hard way of approaching the absolute. That's what the book of love is. So it is part of this cycle of teaching. I had other cycle later. We could talk about some other time. But this is a big cycle. I'm focusing on it because it's a cycle that most teaching talk about. Most teaching talk about the Absolute or consciousness or awareness or love. And this is what this book focuses on. So here we talk about the Absolute, which is the inner mystery when completely total annihilation into something beyond everything we know. And so for the Divine emerges in its purity as the source of everything that can simply annihilate everything.

Avid, you spoke in response to John's question about incomplete realization or descent. And you listed very briefly a number of ways in which the spiritual path and teaching could be short circuited, misappropriated almost. And what I heard you say was, first off, there can be an incomplete working through of egoic conditioning limitations. There can be an incomplete realization which I imagine can be of several sorts. It could be incomplete depth, that is maybe only a realization of one of the boundless dimensions. It could be a transient experience rather than an ongoing enduring immersion in. And it could be a failure or incomplete integration or what you call actualization into life. And then could be if a person does realize the most profound domain, the absolute itself, then the journey of descent could be partial or incomplete. Would that give a cover?

That's very good. Yeah, I think it covered many of the important things. But one thing to say is just because a teacher has partial realization and incomplete realization or something or incomplete descent or whatever doesn't mean that what they do is not useful. It's useful and it could help other people and other people can learn about themselves, whatever. Definitely I'm talking about the teaching here. It's not just me teaching. You're talking about that approach to whole vast teaching with all the elements in it. So that's why I include all different things about it. Like I train teachers. I have many teachers. I'm going to give them actually teaching next week. I'm going Palm Spring to give training with a teacher. I don't expect each one of them to know everything I know. They don't have to to be a good useful teacher. You know, some of them know can be more than others. Everybody's different. So that's the way I see teachers. The question the problem happens is not because the teacher has a limitation, it's when they pretend they don't.

Yeah.

And they. And they Present that they got it all when they don't have it all.

And they. They didn't acknowledge their sources. Like how I get around that. I'll say, Hameed told me, da, da, da, da, you know, and so I just acknowledge my sources and say, this is, you know, this is what I learned.

Yeah.

And to also acknowledge even myself, you know, regardless of what I know, when I teach about something, people ask me question, I could give them an answer and say, that's the teaching. Or I could give them an answer and tell them, I don't know this from experience. This is my sort of my construction, my own way of looking at it. So don't take it as a teaching. It's just a view.

That's right.

I make that distinction. You see, there is what is directly experienced and what does the mind makes of it. These are different things, you know?

Yeah. The Apostle Paul said one time, he said, well, in talking about, I don't know, women shouldn't speak in the churches, he said, God didn't tell me this. Spirit didn't tell me this, but I'm pretty spiritual, and this is what I think. So he kind of distinguished, you know, I kind of respected that.

Yeah, no, I'll. I'll wait for God to tell me.

Okay.

But he at least said, God didn't tell me this. Yeah, yeah.

And Amit, you're pointing to a distinction that a number of traditions make between two kinds of capacities. Say in Buddhism, prajna, which is the transcendent insight into the transcendent, and upya, which is skillful, means skill in teaching and very clear. They not always very highly correlated.

Exactly. Yes, that's true. Realization does not mean you're skillful. Some people I have, some of my students are very highly developed. They don't know how to teach. They're not necessarily good teachers. Even when I had people teach, you can create teams of teachers. Some of them teach better than others. Although their realization is similar, some of them have a facility and some of it cannot be taught. Really. I try to teach. How do I teach them how? There are things I can teach them something. They just have to have it.

I'd love to go back to a couple of topics we've touched on which feel really important to expression of the path of descent. First, John raised before this beautiful point that once there's a recognition of the absolute or I think, any of the boundless dimensions, and then life experiences become the arena for expression of spirit, and former obstacles now become opportunities. And along with that, your discussion of the Point of this very important recognition which as you said is central to the diamond approach that what we're called to do is to recognize the spiritual or the certain dimensions, ideally the absolute as the foundation of experience. And simply to abide as that, to rest as that. And I have to. I'll just to throw in a personal experience when I was reading this section about the. The lack of necessity to do anything with our experience except recognize it its true nature. And to simply abide at it and to recognize this is the. This is the absolute expressing ourselves itself. Ourselves too. And that we're not called to do anything. There's a goalless. Simply a goalless inquiry into it that was enormously free. I just sat in my chair for half an hour just releasing and relaxing into that.

Yeah, that's true. I mean for many teachings that has arrived at the end of the path which is you just live with it. This teaching we use it as a methodology right away from the beginning. I try to teach it not easy for people to do. Take them a while to sort of get into the mode I don't have to do anything to my experience. The letter being it has its own dynamism, its own intelligence to reveal. So all of it is an expression of our true nature. And we just. Because when we do something, we resist, we push, we pull, we confine. We do all kind of things that we don't know about. And this actually goes along with the Kunji Jabba, the initial Dzog Sempak that said any practice is delaying the enlightenment. Wow.

I think translated as the supreme Source. Yeah yeah.

The supreme Source. If you do any. And that actually goes along how. Which practice how many in lifetime delays you which of course after Zocchin took that they wouldn't do anything but that pointing to this point which is that if we don't interfere, things happen by themselves. It is of the nature of reality, that reality that wants to reveal itself. So when we usually in our ordinary experience we're obstructing it because we identifying and believing ourselves and reality and that become quite a big abstraction that we call the ego. But even as we practice, if our practice is oriented toward making something happen, then that is interference and can actually delay things. You know, I know there are many teachings who develop many methods that very powerful all of that. But I in my. In this teaching I take that idea that perspective from the beginning which is not saying not to practice, but that the practice is to be with experience without doing anything to it. To let it inform us to not Just tell us and let it change on its own. Yeah, all that happened, all our part, is we pay attention instead of being distracted. You know, instead of resisting. If we recognize our resistance, it help us not identify with it, but to be with it and attend to it, and even at some point, attending to it is not an action becomes natural. In fact, in many of the practices I teach my students are ways to discipline attention, to pay attention, to stay focused, to be able to not be distracted. These are the practices I don't teach them to make an exciting experience happen. I teach them how the discipline of practice and then let things happen.

And you make two really important points about this, Sunid. But in simply allowing experience to be, that is the condition which allows the creative dynamism of the absolute to manifest most effectively and beautifully and creatively. So that's the first implication you draw on. The second is about a kind of freedom. And I think one of the key implications you offer, particularly as you talk to the various turnings in your own path and tradition and of the diamond approach that we've tended to think in the spiritual life there's one kind of freedom. But you point to, there are multiple kinds of freedom. And here you point to a freedom of simply not a particular state or a particular realization, but of a freedom of being able to just allow being to be and unfold.

Yeah, that's very true. If we manage, if we get to the place we learned enough, become mature enough to cease and desist, to let reality take its course, you see, it will manifest, and it will manifest even our action in our choices, whatever. So it's not like we're not responsible in our life. Responsibility become a natural, spontaneous thing. Responsibility, ethics, morality and a compassion, caring, sensitivity, all of these are expression of our true nature. They're not really human made. And when we're out of the way, that's what comes through. That's what the true human is. It's when somebody is in the way. They have their own belief, their own ideology, their own politics, and they don't want to fight for it. That's when trouble happens.

My practice certainly has been more under the influence of our conversations that we have. It's been much more about surrender. When I do my sitting, you know, I'm not trying to achieve anything. I'm just surrendering and saying, okay, here I am. Hi, God. And whatever happens, happens.

That's the practice of the kunji jab, the supreme book, as I mentioned in the doctrine, which is, what do you do then? What's the practice, if any practice delays you, what do you do?

That's the question.

That's it. You sit and do nothing. I call non doing meditation. I remember I was taught this actually by one of the lamas who part of that tradition, the way he did it. We're in a group of us, I don't know, 60 or 70 of us. They were teaching us for a whole summer. And he sat and he said, okay, you sit down and meditate. Everybody sat down waiting for the instruction. Half an hour passed and he said, then people said, what's the instruction? He said, I gave you the instruction. That was it. I didn't say you should do anything. And that was the most difficult thing for people to understand. They liked him giving the visualization. Do something with your tongue, with your I. Oh, he did all of that, but that one was the Nanduk one. There's simply. He didn't say they won't be in striking. He just didn't say anything. Not there, meditating left us. But he's waiting. What is it going to be? He already gave it by sitting there.

And Zinn does that so beautifully. Whether you sit in a so called shikantaza, the instruction is, which is translated as just sitting. And the only instruction is just sit. Well, wait on. Should I do this? No, just sit. Should I? It just undercuts all doing from the mind in a very beautiful way. And actually this connects with what you're saying. You say in the book Hameed, that this non doing is both predicated on and cultivates a non attachment to any kind of experience, even the most transcendent and profound. It dissolves all preferences. And it actually reminds me of the beautiful lines from the exquisite thirds in Patriarch, which has to be one of the most condensed bits of wisdom to ever hit the planet. It begins with the lines, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

Very true. Yes.

Well, that's liberating, you know, because I realized that I can't do it, you know, so I just open up and let grace happen, you know, how not.

To give up but not to try.

That's.

That's it.

And Roger, you're a three on the Enneagram. So you know, threes are just achievers and workers and I mean, this guy's got so much discipline in his life for decades now. There has to be some sort of liberation or, I don't know, frustration or disappointment to realize that you can't and you don't have to do it, you just have to let it Happen.

I wouldn't call it frustration. I would call it relief and liberation.

Okay.

Yeah. When you feel you don't need to do anything, just be it. Yeah. Relaxation, surrender, ease. And especially when true nature manifests and its richness and fullness and fulfills, you know, the fulfillment, the contentment, the completion, and on life become meta. Expressing that our everyday action and everyday action then is from the person of the Absolute. Everyday action has many ways of appearing, can appear as the Absolute, manifesting the world and the action in it, or can be the Absolute manifesting the world and manifesting the individual who takes action and the behest of the Absolute. What can manifest as an individual who has integrated the Absolute and expresses it in its own attitude and activities. And also one thing to say at this point, a point of caution that even as we go very deep, even in the journey of descent, there can still be obstruction, can still be ego island not worked out. That can become an obstacle or unclarity or a misunderstanding of something. And that is something I want to say to all the realized individual. You're not done. I'm sure for most of us there's still something there to be learned, to be free from. Because feeling the freedom and knowing consciousness, it doesn't mean we worked out every belief, every idea, every position, every concept. And you do need to work them out. That's the thing. Just knowing the absolute, knowing that you're aware, doesn't do it by itself. Does not eliminate the obstacle, does not eliminate the resistance, the identification doesn't make them go away naturally in the stage it feels they're not there, they'll come back. They either limit the flow of order, where else it can go, or it can limit our action. Can make our action go on the wrong way or not completely accurate, not completely right, not completely empowering. But most of the time it limits the possibility of what can happen. That we will talk about at some point. That even as we go through the journey of descent and learn the realization, all of that for this teaching, this is not the end. Still, many teachings take it that ascent, descent with none, and this teaching, the other ascents and descents.

And Hameed, do we have a responsibility as individual souls to work on the obstacles that would get in the way? Yes, that's where responsibility comes in.

Which means to not ignore them, not to pretend we don't have them, to be aware of them, pay attention to them, and they work themselves out. It's not like we have to do something. It's more the awareness and understanding will Reveal them. Unless, of course, some people have things like trauma or abuse, whatever. Those counter states are not easy to be free from. Just first of all, you can't just be aware of them. You get dissociated this and that. That's when you need help. You need actual focus or certain kind of work and therapy. And so I'm not saying for every individual, you don't do anything. For some individuals, they need to do something. They need to see a therapist. They need to see a trauma person too. Because some of these things are so much in the way we lost. You know, we're limited. And it's important that we'll be free from these things because the more we are free of these things, the more our spiritual path is easier, more can happen. The way I talk about as a natural, spontaneous thing.

And Hameed, you had done quite a bit of work on yourself before you had this realization of the absolute. If reading your life story and the history about you, you'd been working on yourself for quite a while and helping others do the same thing.

You're right. Right. I did many kind of therapies, many kind of growth work, self work, had all kind of thing and followed many teachings and teachers and all of that before the dying approach began to manifest in its own, as its own teaching, that revealing new thing I didn't know.

About or hear about me focusing in on we. You're talking about the challenges. And thank you for emphasizing that we're all human. And there's always some limitation. In one of your books, I think Runaway Realization, you make the point that there's always, you know, delusion. We can work through a lot, but there always seems to be some residual delusion more to discover I want to ask you about. So anyway, so that's one of the traps that comes at this point. But you also emphasize another one in the chapter which I didn't fully understand. And that is the. You say the central issue for the core dimension of dissent is identification. That is forgetting one's innermost nature or true self and identifying with the soul and her unfoldment. Can you maybe say something about that?

Well, I mean, we discussed that before, but it comes back again. Identification is such a big thing because what the ego is identifying with image or feeling or a pattern or memory or knowledge or view or ideology, to take that to be part of what defines us so that it emerges again in that dimension that shows that we need to let go. Even identifying with the absolute. Identification is a mental operation, while the realization is spontaneous, natural flow and you.

Mentioned that an exquisite resolution here. You say the resolution comes through recognizing that it is the absolute which identifies and forgets.

Yes.

That's so beautiful.

I mean, that's the thing nondual perspective provides us. That's why I, you know, and I listen to some nondual teachers talk about, oh, when there's identification, oh, it's the individual mind, whatever, that does it. But you just said there's only one thing. How can there be a separate individual mind that does its own thing? So it has to be, you know, and of course, some of them are more advanced. They say the absolute has convenient, what they call it in the fiction of being a person creating a fiction. And I say, no, doesn't create a fiction, just create something. The soul is not a fiction. It's a manifestation organ of the absolute itself to let it manifest in the world. Because how else is going to manifest? Doesn't matter if it's rocks, it doesn't manifest in fish. It manifests as human beings, you know, usually. And so what is a human being? It's not a fiction, you know, it's part of creation.

That's nice.

It feels analogous to the beautiful description of Dzogchen, that even illusion, or what it calls marigpa, not awareness, is an expression of awareness. Yeah.

What's it also an expression of? There's only one thing.

It was like a beautiful judo move.

And that's true. I mean, when you understand the true perspective of unity or oneness and non duality, there are no two, really. Absolutely.

Yeah. So from this perspective, even illusion and delusion, you know, all the traps, etc. Are the expression. Or even, I guess in Hinduism it would be Leela, the divine play of the absolute.

Yes, yes, true. It's like a divine play makes itself forget so it can remember, enjoy the discovery.

It thickens the plot.

Yeah, well, I mean, discovery is, is a wonderful kind of journeying. You know, if you already wake, you're born knowing everything. I mean, that doesn't make it into a life. It makes it like we might as well stay in heaven while you're here.

Yeah, it would be an interesting problem.

So, yes, we forget so that we can learn and discover and, and you know, the reality is such an interesting thing because it's, you know, there's so many facets and layers and dimension we'll be discussing. But you can. Luckily, the whole thing is meaningful in a sense. Even ignorance is there for a reason we need to ignore. We need to be. We need to become an ego. Why? Like Truly, the Absolute manifests itself as an ego to survive physically in a physical. It wants to manifest itself on Earth. To manifest itself on Earth, it has to be physical body that is destructible. How is it going to survive if it experiences itself as I'm free and don't need to do anything to believe it is an individual that needs to manage things to survive and make a living. And then part of that, as part of the natural order thing, if you let it happen, is that it will reveal more. That is the first steps toward the discovery, recognition and the delight of discovery, the enjoyment of it, and then the expression of what we discover in the world. And then so where there was nothing, absolutely nothing which is complete freedom is fallen rich of all kind of actions and interaction and taste and flavors and colors that we call the fulfilled life.

Wow. Beautiful. Beautiful. And you point out that this. This also comes with the recognition that even when there's an apparent be lost into illusion or delusion, that the Absolute is still, is remains untouched, undefiled, completely. So there's that element of beauty to it as well, you point out.

Yeah.

I mean, true nature is indestructible, incorruptible. That's when we experience it. Any dimension, including Absolute, nothing can happen to it. It's beyond all the element that could do something to it.

Amid you've left us in this exquisite place of having pointed to the Absolute and that all manifestation and our lives are expressions or manifestations of the Absolute. And that even the problems, the challenges, the what we think. I was getting lost into illusion and delusion. That also is the play of the Absolute. I mean, what an exquisite vision you're leaving with. Yeah.

Many teachings did it in different ways. This teaching does it its own way.

Yeah. Well, thank you for bringing us your way.

Yeah. Because it is relevant to our worldview. In our Western worldview, we have a certain way of looking at things. It speaks to that kind of mentality.

Yeah. Oh, it's an extraordinary vision. I mean, I feel. I'm really. I'm feeling. Feeling myself at the moment, just touched and illuminated by it. It's like it's an all Dzogtian, I guess, speaks of Kunta Zampo or Primordial Buddha. The translation is All Good. And you're giving us a vision of All Good. It's an ultimate All Good. Doesn't negate the incredible suffering in the world, but it does point to a deeper understanding that is very beneficent and completely fulfilled, very beautiful.

And ultimately everything is okay. It's okay.

Well, because at the bottom, it is perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so beautiful. Me. Thank you for it feels like you've taken us even both over this series and even within this, this single dialogue through a journey to bring us to this beautiful place. Is there anything you'd like to add?

I think one thing is about this chapter. You know, we sort of talking about what's right in this chapter. The chapter details several dimensions I call dimension Descent. It's pretty subtle and it's precise and clear, but it is still subtle and not accessible to most people. So the reader shouldn't feel discouraged. You could read and just whatever hits you, whatever you learn from it is fine. You don't need to get everything. I don't expect people to, because this is one of those chapters that goes into the very subtleties of things. Different dimensions are very subtly different from each other and then shows important distinction, an important thing for life and experience, all that. But they're not there on the surface. They're not there in the ordinary mind. So the reader will need to be patient, will need to take time, spend time in it. It's not a chapter you read all at once. Maybe each dimension, you might two, three pages. You read it at one sitting, but don't expect to get it all. And if some of it touches you, you get an experience. That's what matters.

Well, that's what's been happening. And if I get through three pages, that's a whole bunch, usually about a page or a page and a half in a sitting. It's just that much.

So I imagine all your listeners, some of them are going to go to the book and read it. And I'm saying it's important to read it. You learn a lot. But don't get discouraged. You know, don't discourage. It is the fruition of many years of practice and learning. Whatever doesn't happen frequently. So if we learn something from it, get something from it, it's wonderful.

Yeah. And I. I would add, dovetailing with what John just said, that for us it's been really important to read it and reread it. And with each rereading, different facets, understandings emerge. So it's this text is something which really lends itself to the practice of Christians called lectio divina, using reading as a spiritual practice, really immersing oneself in the text, then taking time to reflect and then to meditate, the three elements of spiritual reading. So, yeah, thank you, Amit and Hameed.

I've started to study your stuff Before I meditate. You know, usually if I read something, whatever, it distracts me, but I find when I. When I actually work with this text, then my sitting meditation seems to be deeper.

So you're learning how to sort of harmonize with it. So it becomes a silencing influence.

All these ideas become a silencing influence. That's. That's outstanding.

Yeah. Only good speaking to you, gentlemen.

Thanks so much me to another priceless.

Talk to you next month. Yeah, thanks.

Yeah. God bless you, Hameed. Thank you.

You take care.

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