Welcome to part two of this extraordinary three part dialogue with A. H. Almaas AKA Hameed Ali. In this conversation we continue to explore the logos and creative dynamism and how the transmission that one receives from a spiritual teacher, for example, is more of an evocation of what is in the teacher and an evocation of what is in the listener. It's truly breathtaking. 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.

Without the individual, there is no experience of any kind, creation or no of anything. There has to be an individual. So that's why I always wonder why those people talking about individual being an illusion? There is no illusion. The logos manifest creates out of itself organs of perception and action that are expression of itself, that are real and alive and as real and dynamic as itself. So the soul is very similar to the logos actually, because it has that sense of flow and dynamism, creativity, things changing and moving.

Hameed, Is it similar as they talk about in quantum physics that something can be a particle, appear to be an individual entity and a wave that extends into infinity, depending on how you perceive it or how you look at it. Is that a good metaphor to help us kind of understand this?

It is a good metaphor, but it could take us away from reality. Because these days people starting to use quantum theory to explain spiritual reality. Like there is for instance, there are many theories of consciousness. One of the theory that's basically recently actually by scientist Federico Fagan, his name, the Italian engineer and scientist, the first person who created the microchip anyway, and he has this theory that the whole universe is consciousness, but that consciousness is a feature of the quantum field. But when you study what quantum field is, it doesn't make sense that quantum field is a mathematical construct trying to understand how quantum effects happen. There is no such thing as a quantum field that exists. However, the logos is and it's true and authentic and it has consciousness and consciousness inherent in it. Because all dimensions to nature have consciousness and awareness. But it is, I mean, if there is a quantum field, it is the nature of the quantum field, not the other way around. It is the nature of atoms and elementary particle or whatever it is. It is the nature of thought. So we need to remember when people talk about consciousness as a quantum field, it's not true. Quantum field, if you ask the mathematician, whatever doesn't make sense to the quantum field for them is a mathematical construct they have, and it's an incomplete theory at the Present time, they'll tell you it's an incomplete theory at the present time. And they're telling that it's the best thing they have, but they don't believe it's really it. We don't know how it's going to develop. And they're not saying it's made of substance or made of something. Quantum field, just like electromagnetic field is a field. Electromagnetic field is a field that is generated by physical phenomena and it creates physical phenomena. And the Logos can be seen as a field, but as a field that is spiritual nature, it is made out of spiritual mass, that is pure consciousness that precedes anything that is perceived in physical world. It's always creating. If quantum field is. The latest theory is creating quantum field and creating the quantum, creating the electron, creating the experimenter. The experiment that detects the electron is creating the experimenter that's setting up the experiment. The whole thing is being created and recreated by this dynamic kind of generative force.

So the Logos is a field, but it's not a field that's created by something. It's the field that creates and manifests.

Yeah. As the field of manifestation. What manifests? And as a living thing. As a living. I mean, just like when you feel alive. Yeah, live. And like if you go running for a long time and you get all, you know, in the zone and you feel the aliveness, it feels like that, sort of. But it feels like that throughout everything, throughout the whole universe.

So the universe is alive.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, yeah. And the Logos is life because the dynamism, what does it mean? It's alive, it's dynamic, it's alive, it's conscious, it's alive, but not alive as an individual who's alive. It's alive in the sense it's the source of all life and the source of everything, including life.

So maybe we could, we could. That's the row. We. Maybe you could kind of say more about the Logos and lay that out and maybe to prime you or just say. My understanding is that there are three distinct characteristics you speak about of the Logos. One is it is this principle of creative dynamism. It's dynamic creative, but it's also an ordering principle. That is, it brings an order and coherence to creativity. But it's also very importantly, it's a nondual dynamism. And that is, it's not like a creator God ordering things around, outside himself, herself. Rather, it is a nondual dynamism in which being unfolds itself as the manifest universe in a Particular order that the logos gives.

Well, I mean, that's why the Greek, the word logos, which comes from order, it means order. I mean, they understood that reality has an order to it. And without the order, actually it's not possible to have a science, for instance, now, and also life. I mean, you know, you're born, you grow up, and you learn. All this is in order. I mean, there's no everything just happened public. You're born, and the next moment you're thrown to another planet. The next moment you're dead. And the next moment, that's no order, that's chaos.

Yeah. It's not random chaos.

Yeah.

So the manifestation out of the logos, the logos, manifests the universe in an orderly fashion. Meaning it is what we look at it. We see it as the universe with its natural laws and with cause and effect. None of that. We see all this order. This is looking at it from the outside, which is not wrong. It's just looking at it from the outside, from the inside. The order is being created. And the creation happened in an orderly fashion in the sense that each manifestation is replaced by the next manifestation. But the replacement continually has an order to it. Just like when you watch a movie, a screen is changing. It has an order. You can't have a horse moving from one side to the next. Before it move 1 inch, it becomes a bird. Before it move 1 inch, it disappears before there's a cowboy. No, it has to have an order. Otherwise you won't have a horse moving from one end to the other. So if there's no order, I mean, it could have been the universe could have been manifested in some kind, just throwing out things. And then there isn't life, a meaningful life. There's no order, there's no development, there's no growth. So the fact it has an all that, the creativity. I talk about the pattern. It is a pattern creation, the pattern outflow of forms. So both the whole universe has a pattern, and it moves and changes like a fabric that is always transforming, changing, but changing in an orderly fashion that makes our life meaningful. We can talk about walking and traveling and eating and sleeping and sunset and sunrises and all. All this is order. But that's orders coming from the logos. So the idea that the logos, not just creative in a haphazard way, creative in a way that has an order, has a harmony in its order, which is the reality of the universe.

And you just mentioned the word harmony, which is a theme you bring in in your discussion of freedom, dynamism, and of the logos. Saying that there's an extraordinary universal harmony of the arising of apparently separate phenomena or aspects of being in this not only incredibly inner kind of symphony, but also your sense of it is that it's guided by this profound cosmic intelligence, feeling, experiencing.

You realize how the intelligence and intelligence that has, that is, it gives. The ordering principle of the creation has an ordering principle. This ordering principle has intelligence. It's organic inherent intelligence, not a thinking intelligence in the sense that, you know, look at the universe. You know, we have galaxies, stars in galaxies, stars have planets, planets have. Some of them have life. Life develops, it evolves, it becomes human. Human can develop all the way to being able to experience the locus. That's quite an order. I mean, think quite an intelligent. I mean, being is so smart that it's just creating the whole universe in such a way so that it knows itself.

And we are the universe thinking. So the universe does think.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it creates our thinking. Right. However, that's another way of looking at it. If you look at the creation, each creation, if you use our. What we discussed before, like all forms and nondual are basically noetic forms. Remember I called. No, they're all concepts, basic concepts. Everything like a tree is a concept, bird is a concept, and being, because it's a knowable form. If you look at it that way, then the logos is really enfoldment of those nomadic form. And if it is like this, that means unfolding through those nomadic form which are all concepts, thoughts, words. So it is the creation can be seen as being, thinking out the universe. I mean, there are different sections. Thinking out the universe, speaking out the universe, you know, unfolding, creating different ways, depending on which dimension of other dimension through nature. We're looking at from the non conceptual, from the conceptual, from dimension of love. Everything is, you know, if you have the dimension of love as implicit in the logos, that's what shows more the richness and the beauty and the harmony, a sense of harmony. Self harmony is really a wonderful kind of. It's not just you perceive harmony, you feel harmony. You feel how like everything is harmonious with everything because all is one thing. Because things cannot vibe with each other, can't compete with each other, they cannot collide with each other. They're all one fabric that is outflowing. So it happens in some. So with love in it feels like a beautiful harmony that brings in a sense of fullness and satisfaction and love and gratitude and all of that to the human soul.

And Hameed, how do we hold both this cosmic harmony and when the Dimension of love is present. The appreciation of it is a loving expression with some of the world's horrors and the apparent disharmonies, the conflicts, the wars, human genocide. Now, well, how to put those together?

Well, good. That's a good question. I'm sure many people will ask that question. All of that that we see is true about the genocide, whatever. That's looking at it from the outside. Look at it from a perspective of time and because from then the logos, it is creating the genocide, but from its perspective, it's harmony. However, not for us human beings. You see, you could say for the divine, all of it is harmony, all of it is love. For us human being, it looks like mayhem, it looks like killing, and it is true. So there are two perspectives on what reality is. So the harmony does not contradict the disharmony that we experience in human society. Let me give you an example to explain that. If you take the human body for instance, and from the perspective of the cells, perspective of the body, the organ, the cells, there is disease, the cancer cell, all that develop and creates a lot of pain. Then the body deteriorates and dies. If you look at it for the perspective, elementary particles, for instance, everything is perfect. No elementary particle is imperfect. And the particles are always interacting in a perfect harmonious way. So it's the two different dimensions of the same thing. So it depends which one we're looking at. Same thing about the Logos and harmony. And there's this harmony we find in society.

One of the things I appreciate about your perspectives and teachings, Hameed, is that you repeatedly acknowledge that there are not only is reality multi layered, multidimensional, but the one can take multiple perspectives. And that if I am understanding you, a skillful way to live is to honor all the perspectives or as many as we are open to, to integrate them into a coherent understanding. And not to do a kind of spiritual bypass with the suffering or the horrors of the world, but to respond to them, to heal, to help as best we can, while to whatever extent we can, recognizing a greater harmony and even perfection to the whole.

Yeah, I mean, if you look at the Buddhist perspective, for instance, the dark perspective, from the perspective, everything is nondual unified matrix, that is complete perfection. Total perfection, it's called it. So reality is total perfection. At the same time, the Buddhas are important for them to liberate human being from their suffering. They're both perspective out there. See, it's similar to that.

Yeah.

Sometimes I. I think, I don't know if you said this or I just kind of Sometimes I get these little gestalts when I'm studying your work and I just kind of understand something. Not linearly, but it just appears, but that in some sense we're playing a role as individuals. But then. Then we become. Oh, not on. I'm not Hamlet, I'm playing Hamlet. So when I realized that I can play Hamlet better, but I'm also the director and I'm also the directing. I'm all those things at once. So be a good Hamlet, you know, be relaxed into that. What you are, the role that you've been given and the work, the role that keeps emerging instant to instant.

Yeah, I mean, I am being. I'm the creation of everything at the same time. I'm a human being who lived in this house in Berkeley, although I am creating Berkeley. And sometimes I have experience both at the same time. I mean, fully, like I'm creating all of this, my environment while I'm environment, sometimes I have experience. I am. As I walk, I'm creating the road as I walk into it. I am creating the room. I get into. I'm creating the room and creating myself appearing in the room.

Is that a harmonious experience? Does that feel whole? Whole satisfying?

That character is beautiful. Yeah, harmonious. Of course, that's the thing. You see, the more we are in this realm, which is this Ram. Any Rama being, we tend to act in a harmonious, loving way in the world. We tend to bring this harmony into the world of disharmony. So it's not like the two are disconnected. I mean, true, there are two ways of looking at reality from different angles. However, we can bring the deeper angle into the smaller angle. The way we live. Our attitude, our hearts and our actions that express that inner harmony.

That's a very important practical implication amid that these larger realizations of, for example, cosmic harmony can inform our actions. If to whatever extent, there's still the sense of a separate doer, that that sense can be informed by the recognition of a harmony and lead to greater skillfulness, harmonious responses, effective healing responses. It's beautiful.

Yeah, that's true. One little thing added. As the inner harmony merges itself in individual harmony. The individual harmony is not separate from the larger harmony. It is like focus of it. So there's no separate. There's no separate individual. Separate individual disappears at some point. There's no separation. Although an individual can continue, but an individual. That's one thing I disagree with Advidanta. They always think individual means separate. I say no individual can be separate or be not separate. You know, Like a drop of water can be separate from the ocean, but could be just part of the ocean.

And the perception of being separate is where a lot of our suffering comes from as human beings.

Yeah. And separate in some sense. You could say that's the world of Samsara. Buddhism has Samsara, Nirvana, they don't say. And deepest realization. They say in Nirvana. Samsara, the same thing. However, for a long time they want to liberate people from Samsara because they're living in suffering. And suffering is being a separate individual who has a history and who has a trauma and has likes and dislikes being liked or rejected or successful or failing all of these things. But that is the life of the way it appears in the dualistic world. And one thing I want to add here about the dualistic world, although I'm talking nonduality, do not say that the dualistic world is an illusion. The dualistic world is one way that the logos manifest reality. The creative dynamism can create a dualistic world.

Now I'm torn, wanting to go two ways.

Many topics in many areas. We could go many directions.

They're endless, bottomless, which is wonderful. I mean, it's a delight.

It's fun, actually. Fun.

Yeah, it is. It is fun.

Discussing great deal of excitement and wonder and the experience itself. And teaching it is always a delight because I'm talking about something I love and I'm giving something I love to other people. I love talking with you. I'm sharing something that I love and you are part of it. Your bodies are created the same time that my body is created right. By this underlying dynamism.

And we're created as loving the dialogue too. So it's. Yes, well, you mentioned teaching, Hameed, and along with that goes transmission. I think John and I both really loved your section in this chapter on transmission.

I was just going to say that by the way, Roger.

Yeah. The logos is, you know, creating us all, etc. And amid you give a really beautiful and deeper expression of transmission than I think John and I have seen elsewhere. And you speak about the idea that particularly the way you train your diamond approach teachers and in profound spiritual transmission of any kind that you teach about a topic. And in the teaching you evoke the realization state of mind that you're teaching about is evoked in you and in the teacher that is expressed in both words, but also all sorts of non verbal expressions, body posture, et cetera. And that the student, if they're sensitive and ready, can kind of resonate with that pick that up on multiple dimensions.

You mentioned that when it's transmission coming through a teacher, what's transmitted, it's the Logos. And this sparks something in the student to the people listening. And so the Logos begins to be more consciously aware of in the student. And every gesture, every word, the presence of the teacher begins to in some way transform and come alive in the students who are the receptors of it. And it becomes a field, I suppose, a manifest field of the living Logos.

Yeah, yeah. The both of you are asking about the direct transmission. I think an important topic. It's an important topic in all spiritual teaching. Actually, it's employed by all spiritual teaching, many spiritual teaching, for instance. I want to give a context to answer the question. If you look at the Tibetans, for instance, the way they do direct transmission, they use rituals for direct transmission. You know, the chanting and symbols and whatever, you know, and things like that. And then. And from that, the supposedly generational state and the Lama that then can't receive. The clearest I remember exposing that is when I the Black Hat ceremony of the Karmapa. If you ever been to one of them, that's probably the 16th Karmaba who used to do the Black Hat ceremony. The present Karma doesn't, because they don't have the black hat anymore. And the Black Hat ceremony is basically the Karma is already in a state, expanded into the awareness that he wants his people to receive. But he. They go through some chanting, whatever, and he has a ritual taking the black hat, opening it and putting it over his head. When he does that, his state become much more magnified. His ritual he's used to throughout his life by putting the hat on his head, the state that he had to be transmitted, the empty awareness is expanded and much more intensified, which make it easier for people to receive. So the question is, how does this transmission happen? Is it really that he sent a state of awareness and the student taught it? Many people think of it as maybe that way that the teacher sends something, you know, emanates something, and the student receives it. Comes from outside. But looking at it that way, that's a dualistic perspective. Looking at direct transmission. It's dualistic and based on physical body and physicality. There are two people, physical bodies, and one transmits something has been what I call the billiard ball perspective. You know, from the perspective of the logos is that as one teacher or anybody is in a state of being that they are, and it is strongly in them, it's sort of that can invite the surrounding people who are near them to sort of open up to that possibility. So it opens up in them. It's not like they're getting it from another person. They get it from themselves. But the teacher impact is to open them up to that possibility by the way they express themselves. The way the rituals or the way they say. And the thing that you both mentioned, the way we do in that approach is the way we get into the state of transmission is by speaking. Because the words from the logos, each state is noble if it is knowable. And it can be verbalized. And the word is not separate from the state. As the word is set, the state comes out with the word. So each word expresses a state that it points to that way. The words and the state are two sides of the same thing. And the teachers. And the way I do it, as I talk about certain state, it gets more there. It manifests more. Because for me, the words and the state are not separate. They're sort of. Because I'm speaking words that are very aligned or very expressive of the state, a direct way. So at some point, speaking the word and the state itself become the same thing. So by speaking more and describing it more, the state manifests more and more. And since the state manifest, the people, the listeners or the students are sensitive. The more sensitive they are, the more they see that. And that invites the state to arise in them. So that how I understand the exile's mission. So the word transmission is really a misnomer. It's a direct invocation.

Oh, nice. Yeah.

That term does seems more appropriate to the understanding. You're offering us a mead. Rather than the kind of mechanical transmission, belieable metaphor. Yeah. So thank you very much.

Yeah. And I think in postmodern spirituality that words and speaking has gotten a bad reputation. That we're not supposed to be in our heads and all this. But what you're saying is words are powerful, words are transitory, words are magic. And they evoke in us very powerful states of becoming alive.

Yeah.

Remember, we are Western people. We are children of the Greek civilization, the Greeks. The word was important for them. The word is the Logos. So the logos is not only the word. That word has many words. And those words are the creation itself and also our words. And you know, the Eastern tradition, like the Tibetan, they develop rituals instead of words, you know, and rituals. Because the rituals are connected to the state. They invoke the state. So the lama, when they does the ritual, they get into the state. The ritual helps them get into the state. You know, ritual sometimes could be like chanting or meditation.

And the Invocation of particular realizations is part of a developmental process. Which brings us to a very important topic in this chapter that kind of builds from everything you've spoken earlier about the creative dynamism of reality, that it's ordered by the logos. There's an order, coherence, harmony, harmony to it. But there's also, you point out a developmental aspect to creativity, that a kind of intelligent developmental process seems to be inherent in creativity. And you speak of this as the one facet of it, as the optimizing force.

Stay tuned for part three of dialogue 15 in our Ah Alnus Wisdom series. Here, Hameed continues to explore the creative dynamism of the universe and tells us that there is a transformational force specific to the human soul where the heart burns with desire for liberation. This force is responsible for human spiritual development. 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, 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 do.

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