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Many Truths, Many Teachings: Why Spiritual Paths Unveil Reality Differently · Deep Transformation

• 0:25
  First of all, I would like to thank every one of you and let you know how grateful we are for supporting the podcast by becoming a member via Patreon or buying us a cup of coffee.
• 0:34
  And now, welcome to Episode 20, the final episode in the A.
• 0:38
  H.
• 0:38
  Almaas Wisdom Series.
• 0:39
  In this conversation we delve into the mysterious revelatory power of the Logos.
• 0:44
  I'll name this episode Breaking the Code.
• 0:51
  Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society, Spirit Life Enhancing Paradigm Ratt conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists with Dr.
• 1:02
  Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.
• 1:07
  Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society Spirit where we explore some of the great questions of our time and of all times.
• 1:15
  And I'm Roger Walsh and our co host is John Dupuy.
• 1:19
  And with us again today we have the privilege of dialoguing with Hameed Ali, whose pen name is A.
• 1:24
  H.
• 1:24
  Almaas.
• 1:25
  And we have been working our way systematically through his central text, the Inner Journey Home Soul's Realization of the Unity of Reality.
• 1:35
  A magnificent text.
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  And we have systematically worked our way through the major chapters over the last year.
• 1:42
  And today we are taking another dialogue to explore one of the appendices which is titled Logoi of Teachings, not exactly a catchy title, but a very profound section.
• 1:56
  And here Hameed explores the challenge that we currently face of for the first time in history, having all the world's religious and contemplative traditions available to us, many seemingly make quite divergent and even contradictory claims, and having sometimes
• 2:14
  quite distinct goals.
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  And the question before us and before our times is how to make sense of this multiplicity of traditions and ideas and claims and beliefs.
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  And there have been a number of attitudes towards this, as Hameed points out, sometimes there's just been a frank dismissal saying, well, they must all be wrong or my way is the only way and the others are mistaken.
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  Or on the other hand, there have been attempts to synthesize and integrate them as long as 4,000 years ago.
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  The Rig Veda, one of humankind's earliest texts, said that quote, the truth is one.
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  The sages speak of it in many ways.
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  So this idea of a common unity, or so called transcendental unity of religions is a venerable one.
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  But Hameed points out that these extreme views by the for or against don't necessarily hold.
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  And it's quite possible that elements of multiple traditions may each have some value and validity, each being an expression of what Hameed calls the Logos, and each offering valuable descriptions of both experiences and the path.
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  And Hameed says that reality is more intelligent, magical and loving than any individual view suggests.
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  So Hameed, maybe a place to start is with this key term, logos, which we've touched on before.
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  But it'd be really good, I think, since it's a central theme of this section.
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  If you would speak to it again now.
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  Yeah.
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  I used the word logos taken from the Greek logos.
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  And from the Greeks, they looked at logos to mean order, the order of things.
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  How things are ordered, how things have an orderly form, orderly sequence.
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  Also mean reason.
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  You know, the word reason comes from it.
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  So it's not just.
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  It's order, the reasonable order, understandable order.
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  The reality has an order to it.
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  It's not haphazard.
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  You know, like a cat continues being a cat day after day after day.
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  It doesn't turn into a dog and then change.
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  Could you say intelligence also?
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  The logos is usually the Greek.
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  They don't put intelligence, the word logos.
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  Intelligence is another word.
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  I think so.
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  Logos is more the order of the changes of things, how things change, have an order to them.
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  Just like our science depends on the fact that there's order.
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  There's no order.
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  There's no science.
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  There are no laws of physics.
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  Laws of physics.
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  They see certain phenomena that have a particular order and they try to find what is the law that governs it.
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  And then they even have mathematical formulas to formulate that order.
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  So order is basically the orderly pattern of things.
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  Like the reality is not haphazard, is not chaotic.
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  It's orderly.
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  And from orderly, there's rationality or reason.
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  Reason to have, reason to think reasonably mean you seeing the order of things and you're speaking in orderly way.
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  That makes sense now.
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  That makes sense and leads to further understanding, further orders.
• 5:47
  Well, that generally, the word what I understand, I mean, Roger can read it off, you know, dictionary, probably.
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  What the logos.
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  Can you find that?
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  And.
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  Well, I'm sure it's.
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  I know it's there.
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  You could just, you know, Google it.
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  You find the logos.
• 6:04
  I just looked it up this morning, so I'll find it again.
• 6:07
  Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you could Google it and find many.
• 6:12
  Okay, here we go.
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  In ancient Greek philosophy, logos refers to the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.
• 6:24
  Yeah, sounds good.
• 6:25
  Yeah.
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  Yep.
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  We did a whole chapter that we call the logos, which is in this case, the way how things manifest, how reality manifest, how does.
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  How changes, how to account for changes and our experience of perception.
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  And the whole, if you remember, the whole chapter details.
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  How do we see from the ground of reality how things appear and how do they change?
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  And that there is not Only a creative force that our nature or the ground being is creative.
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  Creative in the sense create reality.
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  Create reality instant, instant, not just haphazardly.
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  There's an order to the creation.
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  So all of that makes sense to what movement is, what changes, what growth is, what development is.
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  All of these things indicate some kind of order in the way things happen.
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  So the dimension of the Logos goes more not just how things happen, but how they happen.
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  What is the mechanism or the dynamic that makes them happy, make them happy that way.
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  So we did that, which is.
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  I call.
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  I call it divine Logos, or I think that's what God were reading.
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  They're referring to the divine Logos, or I call it the fundamental universal Logos, which mean what is behind all of possibilities, what makes things happen.
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  Because if you look at many of the teaching, the fundamental spiritual nature is simple.
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  And they think of it as just simple, doesn't have details and all that.
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  But then from that comes all of everything we experience and see in all levels and all dimensions of all people and all.
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  And that is a function of the creativity of our nature for the spiritual nature, where it not only has properties like, you know, indestructible and compatible, but it is always in an orderly way creating things.
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  I mean, reminds me some of the Christian ideas of God fashions the world.
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  And here.
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  Yes.
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  So God fashions the world in some sense, in the sense it manifests it, not fashions it, in the sense it rules over it.
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  But fashion is a way created.
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  And then here in this appendix, I use the word Logos and use it in a more limited way than what I call universal Logos, meaning that each teaching has its Logos, because that's another meaning of Logos, which is
• 9:16
  another meaning.
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  Logos is just the fact that any process or any field has its own order, as its own logic, you know, its own logic, reasonable logic, orderly logic.
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  So each teaching has its orderly pattern, orderly logic.
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  So that's a limited sense than universal divine logo that creates everything Here I'm saying that each teaching has its own Logos, meaning its own order, more mean reasonable order or pattern that detailed its view, how experiences happen to
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  it, how practices are connected to realization, things like that.
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  Yeah.
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  Hameed, in the Christian tradition, in the Gospel of John, it's the fourth gospel of the New Testament and the most mystical one.
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  And it starts out, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made by him.
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  But in the original Greek it says in the beginning was a Logos, and the Logos was God, and all things were made by the Logos.
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  And then it goes on to identify Jesus as being the manifestation or as being the Logos.
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  So that's in our Christian tradition also.
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  Yes, I'm aware of that.
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  Yes, true.
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  And I like that passage actually in John's Bible because, well, you say, you know, the beginning was God or Logos was with God.
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  Because the Logos, the way we describe it, as one of the boundless dimension, it is an inherent, inseparable dimension and separate from all other dimensions, including the source dimension.
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  So it is the creativity of the source dimension, which we call the Absolute.
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  In this book that we've been studying,.
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  And you do a story about Logos and the different logi, which is the plural of Logos, and that there's different ones, all these different traditions.
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  And in the east, there's Daoism, Vedanta, Hinduism, anyway, and they're, they're related.
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  But you see, it's like they're all going to the one place which is the absolute Logos.
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  But they all take a different journey.
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  Some may go on a sailing ship, some may go on a submarine, some might go on a camel, a horse, some people walk, some people come over the mountains, but they arrive ultimately at the same place.
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  But how they get there and the experience of getting there and the steps influenced deeply the particular teaching.
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  Yeah, and not only how they experience when they arrive, how they experience what they arrive at.
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  Even that experience, what they arrive at is different.
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  Like, let's take an example here.
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  Let's compare Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.
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  At Veda Vedanta, when you arrive, finally, they talk about the Brahman.
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  And the Brahman is pure consciousness, pure being and pure bliss.
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  Satchid Ananta, basically, that's how they described it.
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  That's how Vedanta sees the final goal.
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  In Mahayana Buddhism, the final goal is, doesn't have the sense of being.
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  They think of it as an empty awareness, transparent, empty awareness, which is none, being and being inseparable.
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  And so their formula is different.
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  There are, you could say they're similar in the sense they're both boundless and infinite and eternal and all that.
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  It has all these.
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  However, how you experience is different.
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  And I have the privilege of being experienced, have experienced both.
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  They're very different.
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  You know, to experience a pure consciousness, it is like a fullness and texture that prevails, just like love, pervading the whole world.
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  Consciousness is a substance consciousness of prevailing everything and is everything.
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  And Mahayana Buddhism, especially as it is done in Vajrayana, for instance, there is Clarity and emptiness and the emptiness feel like there's nothing there.
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  Pure absence of being.
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  And they even describe it as nothing has inherent existence.
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  Non inherent existence cannot be just by itself.
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  You can't just have emptiness by itself.
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  The emptiness always emptiness of something.
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  And here in the fundamental nature, the emptiness of awareness.
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  So awareness is similar to consciousness, both source of perception.
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  But awareness is.
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  I differentiate between awareness.
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  That's why in my teaching I differentiate between awareness and consciousness.
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  Because awareness is empty and is some sense is simpler and more fundamental than consciousness.
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  Because it is the beginning of any experience, any perception.
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  It is just what first arises out of the ground, the mystery, which is a clarity that has a searing emptiness to it.
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  And everything appears as an empty clarity.
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  And this empty clarity is the nature of everything.
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  So when I say clarity, you think of a clarity of mind, clarity of perception.
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  But the clarity is that the transparency everything is transparent and luminously clear, but shut through with total non beingness.
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  While Advidanta Brahman, which has Satananda is shut through beingness.
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  And that's a big difference in the experience.
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  So that is one reason, seeing those differences between teaching that made me write that appendix to try to get some sense why there are different kind of, not only different methodologies, different views, different perspectives, different paths different.
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  But even what's called the realization and experience of enlightenment is different.
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  That's very important to me because there has been a prevalent view of the so called transcendental unity of religions, that these are all different paths up the same mountain and culminate in the same experience.
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  But you are giving a much richer, more nuanced account and uniquely based on your own direct experience, that these realizations are not necessarily identical.
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  And also I think we need to add that there are clearly we now know there are degrees of realization and that that is another fact we have to take into account.
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  Yeah, well, each teaching has degrees of realization.
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  However, I don't grade the teachings realization as one of them is deeper, more true than the other.
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  The view I present, that each one of them is valid, is true and is absolute in that teaching.
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  And equally liberating and bring usual same fruition of freedom, liberation, being in the moment, simplicity.
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  And with all the virtues of love and compassion and humility and generosity and equanimity, all of them have those things.
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  So the virtues are true about all teaching.
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  So by virtues I mean the ways of behavior, what appears through behavior in the world, but the fundamental inner experience of what we realize, what we recognize ourselves as our being is, is different from different for different Teaching.
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  So it's not even when you say that they're all going to the same mountain, they go to the top of the mountain.
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  I mean, I use that metaphor at.
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  I don't think that's really very accurate or very useful.
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  I mean, because the way I look at true nature is that true nature is mysterious and has infinite potential.
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  And its potentiality include how it manifests itself to the particular individual who is opening up to it.
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  So it depends on the individual and the time, on the culture, on the practice, many of these things.
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  So true nature manifests itself in different ways, each one of them true fundamental.
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  I mean, teachings.
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  Especially in the Eid, they talk about the ultimates.
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  Each one has their ultimate.
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  And in that chapter, which I wrote 25 years ago, I'm saying, well, it seemed like many ultimates.
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  How do we deal with that?
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  And that's why I wrote that chapter.
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  What does that mean?
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  There's so many ultimate?
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  Because the usual view, especially from the perspective different teaching, is that there can only be one ultimate, and theirs is the true ultimate, and the others are just not complete, not exact.
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  This and that.
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  What's ultimate?
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  Yeah, that's ultimate.
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  It's.
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  And you know, because that's, you know, in the easy.
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  I mean, they have used to debate.
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  Do debate debates.
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  Like, you know, we know, we read about how the Buddhist and Hindu used to have debates between them about what is the reality and each one when or whatever.
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  And even the Buddhas, they had debate between different teachers like the Zen and the Vajrayana, what is them.
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  Yeah, Christians did that too, Hameen.
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  It was called the Hundred Years War.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  They debated in a different way.
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  And there's a classic story that Sharon Salzberg tells of the incomprehensibility of the two different.
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  Of different traditions.
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  They brought Sunsenim, the Korean Zen master, and one of the great Tibetan masters who spent many years in a cave unblocking on his name together anyway and brought them together for tea.
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  And at a certain point, Sun Sa Nim did his Zen thing and thrusting an orange in front of the nose of the lama and saying, what is this?
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  What is this?
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  Of course, the lama was nonplussed and finally turned to his assistant and said, don't they have oranges in Korea?
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  It's like, I have a pressing question for you.
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  You talk about in this appendix, this part of the book, that you can have a teacher, you can engage in the practices, you can study the Scriptures, and that still doesn't necessarily lead to success.
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  But one has to Break the code of the particular logi.
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  And when that happens, when that code is broken, then it begins to affect consciousness.
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  Then it begins to have its true transformative power.
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  Yeah, so that's an important thing, which is that each teaching, the way I look at it, that the logos of a teaching is not obvious.
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  You can't get it exactly by reading or studying or listening to a talk.
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  And you could get some glimpses, some understanding, some experience.
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  But that doesn't mean the logos will begin opening and unfolding and revealing its mysteries of the teaching.
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  For that to happen, one has to break the code.
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  Breaking the code is not the same thing as understanding a formula, solving an equation, something like that.
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  It's more like through practice of familiarity and immersion, at some point, a person gets the sense, gets.
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  What's this teaching about what this particular logos view from reality?
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  How does it look at things from the inside?
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  Yeah, and a lot of insight in it.
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  And breaking the law.
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  It's not like there's one experience we call breaking the code.
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  It's more succession of experiences and insights and in conjunction with the practices that at some point we get the knack of it.
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  At the knack of it, we sort of our consciousness aligned to the particular logos.
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  So when our line, the particle, logos, the logos will begin to reveal its possibilities naturally.
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  You know, it just begins to flow.
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  I notice this, for instance, in some of my students.
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  Like, some of them struggle and struggle for years.
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  Some of them, at some point, things seem just to happen.
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  You know, they come to the teaching knowing what I'm going to teach before I teach it.
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  That means that the logos is opened for them.
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  The code got cracked.
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  Doesn't mean they think they cracked the code.
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  It's just my terminology of that process.
• 22:21
  And I mean, there's a little bit of a non sequitur, but it's an important point because a lot of it follows from a point you make early in the section, which is you point out that the beginning of
• 22:31
  that dialogue, you gave a nice description of the logos as both the principal order of reality and also the ordering principle of manifestation.
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  And you pointed out that early on that the logos has an optimizing property, that the logos tends, if we cooperate with it, to unfold our experience towards in the direction of its own harmony and the peace of its
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  absolute ground.
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  And you emphasize that is a very important point, that the logos has an optimizing dynamic and direction, and we need to align ourselves with it in certain ways.
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  Yeah.
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  So the log has an optimizing force to it.
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  And the optimizing force, some of us are in touch with it and feel it, and we align ourselves with it.
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  Some don't, you know, most people don't.
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  And the optimizing force appears.
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  The reason I mentioned that that optimizing force appears or is expressed in the appearance of the various teachings.
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  Because the various teachings, what do they do?
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  They optimize the experience of the individual, engage in them.
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  They optimize them, make them open, more open, more wonderful.
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  Show the beauty, the freedom and the mysteries and riches possible in the human spirit.
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  So the path is a process of optimization, really is liberation, but also optimizing experience, optimizing life.
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  And each teaching is an expression of that optimizing force of the universal logos.
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  So the particular logo are sort of an expression of that optimizing force.
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  Not everything happened in the universe is an optimization.
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  I mean, have disaster, this and that, and no, no, no.
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  You might call long term and maybe optimizing something, but for the short term, while people going through it, it seems like the thing going with this not better.
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  So as a whole, manifestation does not from the perspective of the universal logos.
• 24:48
  If you look at it from the universal logos as a whole, you don't talk about optimization or not.
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  It's all logos only manifest everything as the beauty and harmony, I mean, always perfect, if we look at it from the perspective of the universal locus.
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  So there isn't the question of your optimization.
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  You know, it doesn't make sense because everything is completely perfect the way it manifests.
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  But that is from the perspective of the deeper dimension.
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  However, each path take a human being from where they are and take them deeper, faster, bigger places.
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  And that is a process of optimization.
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  So each particular logos have to differentiate between the particular logos of a teaching and the universal Logos that create everything that is behind all the particular logoi.
• 25:38
  And each particular logos can be seen as an expression of the optimizing force of the universe and logos.
• 25:45
  And you suggest that in each tradition that the logos takes its unique form within each tradition in a way that is appropriate to the situation, the context, the time, the tradition, and even the individuals who participate in it.
• 26:04
  Yeah, I mean, that's what we see.
• 26:05
  I mean, just look at it.
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  Why is the Eastern tradition so distinctly different from the Western tradition?
• 26:12
  There is a big difference between them.
• 26:14
  Although some in the Eastern tradition have similarities, you know, because they become theistic.
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  But Western tradition, I mean, the three major religions, they all believe in one God, and God is the Creator.
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  Right.
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  And created the universe.
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  And it's a very different and the spirituality is the relationship to that creator God, even the mystic.
• 26:41
  They have to coach it in that language, you know, although some of them don't stick to it.
• 26:48
  Exactly.
• 26:48
  They sound eastern, but they wonder why is it so different?
• 26:52
  It's not because some out in the east and the west, but the different cultures and different traditions, they were not in contact with each other a long time ago.
• 27:00
  That much, you know, some, but not that much.
• 27:03
  So the universal logos manifested a particular logo in each tradition differently because the culture was different, the times are culture different, the people were different.
• 27:15
  And I see that thought manifested the particular logos of a teaching that allows liberation, experience and fulfillment to happen, to bring in the perfection of reality in a way that liberates, that fulfills.
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  And that made sense to the culture, to the people involved in it.
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  And also not only made sense, made it possible for the individual to receive it, to connect to it, but it had to somehow connect to their situation and their needs, their aspiration, their mentality, the way they were thinking
• 27:52
  and viewing and feeling things.
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  And you cannot give different people the same thing and expect them to get it.
• 27:59
  So I think that this might be actually a controversial perspective.
• 28:04
  You know, I don't hear people talking about it and usually spiritual teachers don't talk about this.
• 28:11
  Each of the spiritual teachers come from a particular tradition, even if either, even if they're not from a tragedy.
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  But they're all individual teachers.
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  They take their teaching perspective as what is really true, what they know.
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  They might give lip service to the other, but they don't necessarily.
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  They think their way is the way.
• 28:32
  Hameed, let me break in here for a second.
• 28:34
  I had the pleasure of meeting you in person last week.
• 28:37
  Anyway, we introduced each other and I was busy studying this text.
• 28:42
  And I ask you, you seem to have this profound understanding of these different perspectives, these different logi from east, west and all of this.
• 28:51
  And I, and I ask you, is it because you're just an extraordinary scholar or theologian, or is it because it's experiential that you've really gotten inside of these things and understood them and in some sense broken the code?
• 29:04
  And you're.
• 29:05
  You gave me a one word answer.
• 29:07
  You said both.
• 29:08
  Yes, I did study many of the teachings.
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  I immersed myself studying, reading, you know, exploring and.
• 29:16
  But I also came in contact with many teaching and then had the experiences of some of them, the realization of some of them.
• 29:25
  And I used to visit teachers and engage with some teachers and traditions.
• 29:29
  And so I had contact, so I had good fortune of learning the teaching of many Traditions.
• 29:39
  And I wouldn't claim that I actually know it the way the masters of those teachings know it, not when they're completed.
• 29:48
  I might be a little bit off too, but in generally I am on the right track, I think.
• 29:52
  And you implied as much amid.
• 29:55
  But it needs to be acknowledged that this is rare because as you say, most of us are familiar with one tradition.
• 30:03
  We've worked with it intensely, perhaps had some openings with it.
• 30:07
  And we tend to look out at other traditions and look at them from the outside, whereas from our own we're looking at it from the inside.
• 30:15
  And the anthropologists even have a term for this, the emic perspective, when one's looking from the inside of a culture or tradition, an etic where one's looking at a cultural tradition from the outside.
• 30:27
  But you are one of very few people I know of who is looking at multiple traditions to a certain degree, at least from the inside.
• 30:38
  And so when you speak about them, there is the sense that, yeah, you really know the logos from direct experience.
• 30:47
  That's a rare gift and a contribution.
• 30:49
  Inside also from the outside.
• 30:52
  I did study from I was having 10, I read and studied and all that.
• 30:56
  Yeah, you're also a scholar.
• 30:58
  Skill, sense.
• 30:59
  I read the text and worked on them and explored them and tried to understand them as best as I can.
• 31:06
  And of course understanding becomes more complete when I come in contact with the actual tradition or particular teaching.
• 31:15
  And you make the point that knowing one's own path doesn't necessarily grant you insight into the logos of another.
• 31:25
  Although you do say, make an interesting qualification that if one reaches a point of a significant degree of realization in one owns tradition, that does tend to help facilitate the understanding of the logos of other traditions.
• 31:40
  It definitely helps because we are in place of freedom and we especially if we are stabilized in the freedom that we don't have to be attached to our realization and to the out, you don't have to.
• 31:57
  And we don't have to hold the view of it because each relaysee has its view of perspective.
• 32:04
  It gives the mind a perspective of what reality is and what I see.
• 32:10
  The holding onto the view is what stops many in a master teachers from crossing to other teaching because they hold on to a view and the view.
• 32:22
  What I see is the subtle element here.
• 32:26
  In fact, if you read Zoga, they talk about view, right?
• 32:29
  Yeah.
• 32:30
  So what do they mean by a view, you know?
• 32:32
  Well, they're talking specifically about a particular perspective.
• 32:36
  Yeah, perspective, but also is related to experience.
• 32:40
  So the realization, the experience and the perspective are inseparable because the perspective comes from the experience.
• 32:48
  Yes.
• 32:49
  And also a distinct feature is that many of the advanced practices in Dzogchen are in.
• 32:56
  One deliberately holds the view, or the perspective adopts the perspective as a practice for solidifying the recognition of that realization.
• 33:06
  Exactly.
• 33:07
  So that's what each teaching does.
• 33:09
  You see, they have to hold the view to stay within the logos.
• 33:13
  To stay within the logos.
• 33:15
  And I think that is one reason.
• 33:17
  Well, one of the reasons why many masters don't go to other teachings, because they hold on to their view.
• 33:26
  And they won't be able to understand as long as they take their view to be the real view, the only real view they take to be the only real view.
• 33:36
  That closes you to seeing other views.
• 33:39
  You know, other views will be seen as incomplete or wrong or whatever.
• 33:43
  And that's one reason.
• 33:44
  Another reason is that most of the masters are engaged and busy with their own teaching.
• 33:50
  They're busy with their practices.
• 33:52
  They're busy with teaching their students and all that.
• 33:56
  And they're so involved and engrossed in it, they don't really have the time or the interest to explore other teachings much.
• 34:04
  I mean, there are exceptions.
• 34:05
  There are ones who did.
• 34:07
  You know, for instance, the way it happened, I think, in Tibet, what's called the Rima movement, where many lineages and then the first Tientse, Tientsi, Huangpo and another major lama brought all of them together.
• 34:27
  And the idea is that because there were so many, the tradition was declining, and he wanted to bring them all together and toward the revival end, I think, of the 18th century or so, a revival of Tibetan Buddhism,
• 34:43
  where all the teaching got reactivated into one boat.
• 34:47
  He was a kind of master who was open to other logoing, but each one of the lineages had its own logos.
• 34:55
  In some sense, he wanted to.
• 34:57
  He studied all of them, and he tried to preserve the literature of all of them.
• 35:03
  And he wrote about a lot of them.
• 35:06
  And that's why, from his incarnation, descendants worked on that, preserving that, you know, And I like Huangpu myself, I feel some kind of kinship with him, because he's done that, at least within the Tibetan tradition.
• 35:21
  That's where he was in Tibet.
• 35:23
  He wasn't connected with other tradition, other places.
• 35:25
  If he was, he might have tried to do that too.
• 35:28
  Yes.
• 35:28
  And you're pointing to a feature of our time, Hameed, that historically, most people weren't even exposed to much in the way of other traditions.
• 35:37
  In some sense, we're unique in having available to us all the traditions.
• 35:41
  So this open openness to other traditions in Some ways being forced on us or encouraged anyway by our times.
• 35:48
  Yes.
• 35:49
  And Hameed, you also mentioned that a good effective teacher will not only teach the student the Logos of that particular school or tradition, but will also respect the individual path of the student that comes to him.
• 36:03
  And that is also very important.
• 36:05
  And in some sense, the individual has to be drawn to the path by the Logos itself.
• 36:10
  And that good teachers, I don't know if that's a term you use, will not go out and recruit students.
• 36:15
  They will recognize if somebody on their path is being led there.
• 36:20
  And you might even send some students or wannabe students away because it's just not the right thing for them individually.
• 36:28
  Very true.
• 36:28
  That the case, especially in our times when there are so many teachings available.
• 36:34
  I mean, if you were like in Tibet or ancient India or the beginning of Christianity is one, there are many choices.
• 36:43
  So you were just studying what was availing yourself to the teaching that was available.
• 36:48
  But our times are different.
• 36:50
  So it's a challenge for people these days about, well, what do you do?
• 36:56
  I mean, many, what they do, they shop around, for instance, they go, they experiment with this.
• 37:02
  Take a workshop there, listen to talk there.
• 37:05
  And they like this, like that.
• 37:07
  But you need to settle someplace at some point and go deep into a Logos.
• 37:11
  You can't go deep by shopping around, which is what many of the young people these days are trying to do.
• 37:18
  I have my own path, which means I'm gonna listen to this and that and then I'll follow.
• 37:24
  No, it doesn't work that way.
• 37:25
  You really have to follow a particular Logos because the Logos has a progression to it.
• 37:31
  It has logos, it has a logic to it, the logic of experience, the logic of practice that will naturally unfold the consciousness to open up to the secrets of reality and depth of it according to the particle logos.
• 37:49
  And largely, I think that, Hameed, that in our, in our country, the United States, that young people have been largely disappointed with churches, that they did not find a real logo stream there that they could relate to.
• 38:02
  And so that sent them out of the churches and not knowing mystical Christianity and not knowing that the true teachings that have come through this tradition and they just.
• 38:11
  They're out looking for something that actually works for them, touches them, connects with their soul.
• 38:15
  Yeah, that is an important part.
• 38:18
  But remember also what we discussed last time, which is that the Western culture has become a secular culture.
• 38:25
  So the church or religion wasn't as formal as foreground.
• 38:30
  Wasn't that important.
• 38:31
  Secularism and materialism became so dominant.
• 38:34
  But then the spiritual impulse comes through Some individuals anyway, regardless of whether they're secular or they grew up in a secular way.
• 38:45
  And they will need to find something.
• 38:47
  You know, I mean, they could follow their own impulse, their own longing or their own enlightenment drive.
• 38:55
  But at some point, at some point they need to hook up with some kind of true logos that actually logos that takes one all the way to the liberated condition.
• 39:07
  So our situation, present time, especially in the west and now probably through even in the east, you know, as you said, organized religion has lost much of its ground.
• 39:20
  There isn't really good churches or inspiring teachers or mentors.
• 39:25
  And so many turned to new forms of spirituality are manifesting coming to this, to the west, mostly Eastern called some Sufi or teaching came and even the Kabbalah, they got more interest in it than it used to be.
• 39:42
  You know, a decade ago, people didn't hear the Kabbalah, which is a Jewish mystical teaching.
• 39:50
  Now it is known, many people hear about it and there are teachers who teach it.
• 39:57
  So it's good that there are all these approaches available for people.
• 40:01
  But then the challenge here is not to get lost in all these what's available, but to.
• 40:11
  Yeah, to find out, to explore.
• 40:14
  Until at some point you see which one somehow speaks to you, which one makes sense to you.
• 40:19
  I know this from experience because I know some of my students come to me and say, well, when I read that book of yours, right away it hit me.
• 40:28
  That's my thing.
• 40:29
  That's my way.
• 40:31
  I mean, not everybody says that, but many individuals, I mean, it's like they read a book or listen to a talk or whatever, and right away it hits them.
• 40:40
  Yeah, that's how my experience makes sense to my experience.
• 40:43
  My experience actually been flowing that way for some time now.
• 40:47
  I'm glad I found this teaching.
• 40:50
  And I imagine that happens in other teachings too.
• 40:52
  Yeah, you refer to it as.
• 40:54
  You say that you need to be sensitive to the voice of the Logos and the promptings of the Logos, and that in doing that it's encountering one's individual destiny to find what path is taking them home, if you
• 41:11
  will.
• 41:11
  Yeah, One way of saying is, yes, because our fulfilling our destiny is for our soul or for consciousness to flow, to open up in that particular logos that is more appropriate for us.
• 41:28
  In some sense, people are different.
• 41:29
  You see, you'll think most people think, well, all human beings are similar, are the same.
• 41:35
  Whatever teaching they could adopt will work for them.
• 41:38
  But we find that's not the case, that, you know, a particular person need to find the right teaching for them.
• 41:44
  There might Be more than one who speak to them.
• 41:47
  But it's not like they pick anything.
• 41:49
  It will work for them, you know, because their soul is flowing through particle tend.
• 41:55
  Wants to flow through particle logos, through particle order, through particle logic of experience.
• 42:01
  So when they find the right one, it clicks.
• 42:05
  And it is not the same thing as just being turned onto a teacher.
• 42:10
  You know, that part of it can be that the teacher turns you on.
• 42:14
  That's it.
• 42:15
  And at some point, you know, because teachers, I guess, are frequently charismatic and eloquent and that could turn us on.
• 42:24
  But then that doesn't mean we can hook to a teaching, you know.
• 42:28
  And so the situation, the modern situation is complex.
• 42:34
  I think in this situation was somewhat addressed by Krishnamurti.
• 42:38
  If you remember, Krishnamurti tried to address the situation.
• 42:42
  He addressed it differently from the way I do.
• 42:44
  I mean, basically his way of looking at it is that truth is a pathless path.
• 42:50
  There's no path that leads to the truth.
• 42:53
  That's what he's saying.
• 42:54
  And each person has to do it themselves.
• 42:57
  And I think in some sense, because he recognized many teachings, but the way he did it, he was disappointed in the original teaching he was following.
• 43:08
  So he ended up dissing all teachings and basically saying, no, teachings don't work.
• 43:13
  You have to find it yourself.
• 43:15
  Which is very different from what I'm saying.
• 43:17
  Because he himself, by the end, realized people weren't getting his teachings.
• 43:23
  Not only not getting, they're not benefiting.
• 43:25
  He knew they were not benefiting.
• 43:26
  He was wondering, why come?
• 43:27
  How come people don't.
• 43:29
  How come they're not getting it?
• 43:31
  And I liked him.
• 43:34
  I used to went to some of his talk and I listened to his video.
• 43:39
  And I recently watched a couple of his.
• 43:42
  When he talked about that, people ask about meditation.
• 43:48
  How do you meditate?
• 43:49
  He said, well, before you can meditate, you have to put your house in order.
• 43:53
  That's what he tells me.
• 43:54
  It's a meditation that requires you put in house in order.
• 43:58
  I wonder what he means by putting it out in order.
• 44:01
  So they asked, what does it mean?
• 44:02
  It turns out to put your house in order meant first you have to be free from reaction, beliefs, habits and conditioning, not putting your house in order.
• 44:13
  And he said, you need to do that before you meditate.
• 44:16
  And of course, people ask him, how do you do that?
• 44:20
  That's not easy.
• 44:21
  He said, yes, not easy.
• 44:23
  Well, as far as I don't know if any of the students can put their house in order that way.
• 44:29
  What most teaching do is that putting a house in order is true.
• 44:34
  It's needed, but it is part of the path.
• 44:37
  It's part of the practices, part of the teaching.
• 44:40
  You know, you can't do it just by yourself.
• 44:43
  Not easy.
• 44:43
  We go to the teaching because our house is not in order.
• 44:46
  Exactly.
• 44:47
  And the way he put it into two state.
• 44:49
  You put your house in order, then you meditate, basically you contemplate the sacred.
• 44:55
  But you know what we see in many teachings, the two things go together.
• 44:59
  They're not be two separate things.
• 45:01
  But he was trying to address the fact that many teachings.
• 45:05
  He was aware of many teaching, and many were teaching in the West.
• 45:09
  Yeah.
• 45:10
  And you mentioned that you really can't invent your own logos.
• 45:13
  I mean, that's not something a human being can just pop out their brain.
• 45:17
  It has to be the logos itself.
• 45:20
  That, as in your case, you know, showed you this new school, the diamond approach, that was something that you didn't invent that from your own, you know, thinking and pondering on it, although I'm sure that was part of
• 45:31
  it.
• 45:31
  But there was a direct guidance of this.
• 45:34
  Yeah.
• 45:35
  Of the logos itself.
• 45:36
  Yeah.
• 45:37
  It takes a lot for me to convince people I didn't invent it.
• 45:41
  Even people say, well, you can struggle.
• 45:43
  You combine things.
• 45:45
  And I remember at the beginning when I first was writing, people thought, well, I'm, you know, a philosopher and this and that synthesizer.
• 45:54
  And I was thinking, I can't synthesize this.
• 45:57
  I don't have the kind of intelligence to do it.
• 46:00
  I mean.
• 46:03
  But now I think it's clear, become more clear, at least that Adam says that I didn't create.
• 46:09
  It is not possible because a logos is not created by an individual.
• 46:14
  Logos manifests through individual or a community to reveal itself amid.
• 46:20
  You move into a section in this appendix about spiritual dimensions, and you point out that in many traditions there is an idea of manifestation that the absolute manifests the physical and other realms.
• 46:37
  Manifest realms through a number of stages or steps, with the idea that each stage is a movement that in some sense that seems to veil the absolute manifestation becomes denser, more particular.
• 46:54
  And this is a common idea across.
• 46:56
  You point out this is a common idea across traditions, but it's not a feature of the diamond approach.
• 47:02
  So maybe you could elucidate that.
• 47:05
  Yeah, I mean, the teachings mostly actually specifically does it that way.
• 47:10
  Kashmiri Shaivism, that it has all these tattvas, what they call tattva principle, start from Shiva through Shakti, manifestation happened and the manifestation become more and more limited.
• 47:24
  I don't know, 70, 72 tattva.
• 47:26
  And finally it becomes the physical world, which is Shiva hidden, completely hidden, which is a particular logos by the way.
• 47:36
  So it's a valid real logos and teaching and many became realized through it.
• 47:42
  So I don't think of it as wrong.
• 47:44
  I think of it as just one low verse.
• 47:46
  The logical diamond approach is different, like of the divine approach in that the different dimension that I talk about, including the physical dimension, is its own dimension.
• 47:57
  They're all, each one is true nature manifesting itself in a particular way.
• 48:03
  Now all teachings say that.
• 48:05
  However, they say it's clothed, so it doesn't show a true nature.
• 48:09
  I said, well, in some sense you could say that you're not seeing true nature in its purity when you're seeing the physical dimension.
• 48:17
  However, the physical dimension is the way through nature manifesting.
• 48:22
  I call it manifesting its face.
• 48:24
  It has many faces.
• 48:25
  One of the phases manifests.
• 48:27
  So it's not a clothing, anything.
• 48:29
  It is one way.
• 48:31
  It manifests forms and has good reason for it.
• 48:35
  In fact, the physical world is manifested so that we can begin to practice.
• 48:42
  We have to live, we have a lifetime.
• 48:46
  We have capacities and learning.
• 48:48
  All of that are needed for us to begin to feel the spiritual impulse.
• 48:54
  All of these happening in the ordinary world, you know, and so to take that as a clothing or as an illusion or whatever, it sort of, you know, diminishes its importance.
• 49:07
  My perspective, I don't know like the Vedanta think of it no as really an illusion.
• 49:14
  That pure consciousness of kid is an illusion, which is their view.
• 49:19
  My view is that it's not an illusion.
• 49:22
  It's one way reality can appear.
• 49:24
  It also can appear as whole world, as pure light and transparent light, for instance.
• 49:30
  Yeah.
• 49:30
  You mentioned in the diamond approach, there's these five basic dimensions, but each one is boundless and there is no separation.
• 49:37
  I mean, they are all, I guess, distinct, but all the same.
• 49:41
  So I imagine you could find, you know, you could see the absolute or realize the absolute through any of these dimensions because they're all essentially connected.
• 49:49
  They're the same thing.
• 49:50
  They're all the same thing.
• 49:51
  Yeah, they're a different expression of the same thing.
• 49:56
  I mean, not in this book and further book I even mentioned, even the absolute is a manifestation of true nature of the spiritual.
• 50:06
  Spiritual truth is much more mysterious.
• 50:09
  It's actually non manifest.
• 50:10
  You know, it cannot be known in manifestation.
• 50:14
  So it manifests first as the absolute showing.
• 50:18
  But the absolute, as the dimension of mystery says, reality is mysterious.
• 50:23
  And you could take it that the absolute is mystery, or you could take it as the Absolute highlighting the mystery of reality.
• 50:32
  And I mean, I got to ask, what is the book in which you say that the Absolute is not the deepest?
• 50:39
  Well, I mean, Runaway realization.
• 50:42
  Okay, yeah, I think I do get into that.
• 50:46
  But no, from the perspective of the non dual reality, it is the deepest because in the approach we have non dual realization.
• 50:57
  In the non dual perspective, it is the deepest.
• 51:00
  But to say it's the deepest can be misinterpreted because that means that the pure awareness or pure presence are more superficial and true.
• 51:15
  The Absolute manifests them.
• 51:17
  That doesn't make them more superficial.
• 51:20
  It manifests them as an expression of what it is.
• 51:25
  You talked about.
• 51:26
  I mean, this ultimate mystery that we begin to talk about, the Absolute, the mind simply can't.
• 51:31
  The brain, the human brain can't wrap its head around this.
• 51:34
  But the heart can rest in that mystery and in some sense apprehend it.
• 51:40
  And the okayness of the absolute mystery, which is a function of the heart and not so much of the brain.
• 51:46
  Or the head, you cannot think it out and figure it out.
• 51:50
  You have to experience it.
• 51:51
  And the felt sense which the heart is central to, it is needed.
• 51:56
  And that's what we did when we studied the Inner Beloved.
• 52:00
  Yes, and remind people that was a beautiful series we did in exploring your trilogy on love, which was just amazing and took us into the heart of love and far beyond anything, any depth or description I've seen anywhere
• 52:16
  else.
• 52:17
  I mean, maybe we could move to the topic of spiritual qualities, because you make the point that many people think that different traditions all refer to a shared set of spiritual qualities.
• 52:29
  And you point out that actually different traditions emphasize different qualities.
• 52:33
  They relate to them differently, and they have different understandings of how those qualities are related to the Absolute and how they can be used for practice.
• 52:43
  Yeah, and some tradition don't even mention qualities.
• 52:48
  So all that's true.
• 52:50
  Some traditions talk about qualities.
• 52:52
  You know, like Kabbalah talks about qualities, Sufis talk about qualities, and some of the Eastern Hindutvin talk about qualities.
• 53:02
  But each one has its own logos, its own view of what equality is.
• 53:07
  A diamond approach has its own view of what equality is.
• 53:11
  Just as in diamond approach, just as the dimension are expression of the fundamental truth, the qualities also are expression of the fundamental truth.
• 53:22
  And they're essential.
• 53:23
  They're not just something that came afterwards.
• 53:25
  They're essentially baked into the.
• 53:28
  The Absolute is its finest.
• 53:30
  Yeah, they're essential.
• 53:31
  They are part of the logos of the diving approach.
• 53:35
  I mean, usually many traditions, when they take the fundamental ground, they give it different Properties.
• 53:43
  They describe it as this and this and loving and compassionate and open.
• 53:48
  All of that.
• 53:48
  They say it has all that.
• 53:50
  But I think it would add characteristic of the ground.
• 53:54
  And I hear, I say, yes, these are character of the ground.
• 53:57
  But they can be differentiated and appear as a specific quality that appear in our experience.
• 54:04
  So we can be filled with love, we could be filled with gratitude, we could be filled with intelligence.
• 54:09
  We could be filled and overflowing with compassion or power or strength or forgiveness.
• 54:19
  All these are qualities of presence, which meaning qualities of pure consciousness, qualities of pure awareness, which are they share in the fundamentally ground.
• 54:31
  It's fact, if it's truth, if it's primordiality and all that.
• 54:35
  But they're specific qualities.
• 54:38
  So, you know, I cannot talk much about the quality of other teaching.
• 54:43
  They're not as emphasized as we do.
• 54:46
  The Dan approach, the diamond approach.
• 54:49
  The way I look at qualities is that if you take away the metaphor I use and that if you take true nature, the fundamental ground as light, as white light, the qualities is like the prismatic colors that appear.
• 55:05
  Just like light can appear differentiated to different colors, blue and red and gold.
• 55:13
  So the colors is.
• 55:14
  Is similarly as a metaphor.
• 55:19
  It's the same light, but appearing in one of its adherent, implicit quality, appearing explicitly and dominating the scene.
• 55:28
  In a sense.
• 55:29
  The specific qualities, all the other qualities are inherent in each individual Quality.
• 55:34
  Quality, I would imagine.
• 55:35
  Yeah.
• 55:35
  And we discussed the qualities the first half of the book, you know.
• 55:40
  But you do make a very important point here about these qualities amid which is that you say it's even one of the laws of the universal Logos, that whatever qualities one attends to and focus on tend to increase.
• 55:55
  And since different traditions focus on different qualities, they tend to cultivate different qualities.
• 56:00
  They do, yeah, that's very true.
• 56:02
  Yeah.
• 56:03
  I mean, each quality has a function, has its own impact and experience, both in terms of the path and in terms of living.
• 56:15
  They're both.
• 56:15
  Now, some teachings, they think of the quality only in relation to the path.
• 56:19
  And the quality approach has to do with the path and living.
• 56:24
  Because, you know, if you have strength, for instance, and intelligence, you need them to live your life, to live your life in a real authentic way.
• 56:32
  But also they're very important for practice with the inner path.
• 56:35
  Difficult to move through the path without the strength that has courageousness and boldness and energy, for instance.
• 56:43
  Yeah.
• 56:43
  And you also mentioned.
• 56:44
  You talk about the Eastern traditions, which you already talked about at schools, and then the Abramic.
• 56:50
  Abramic traditions of Islam and Christianity and Judaism.
• 56:54
  But then you also mentioned the shamanic logos, which I found comforting because that's one of the things that are.
• 57:02
  Through my teacher, influenced me deeply.
• 57:05
  I didn't become that, but it was a big influence on me.
• 57:08
  And one of the things that I the qualities that are emphasized there is fearlessness and surface of all your relations.
• 57:17
  And so you need to be courageous.
• 57:19
  And you need to do it not for self aggrandizement, but for in service of everything and everyone and all creatures.
• 57:25
  Which is.
• 57:26
  Works for me deeply.
• 57:27
  Yeah.
• 57:28
  You know, the shamanic realm is an interesting thing because there are many shamanic, you know, teachings around the world.
• 57:35
  You know, the shamans and all over the world.
• 57:37
  And they're all different.
• 57:38
  They are, but they have a similarity to them.
• 57:41
  They're all shamanic.
• 57:43
  That shows that there can be a group of logoi that can be embraced with one larger logos.
• 57:49
  There's a shamanic logos, and within it there's a different logos.
• 57:53
  Like the Native American here in the US Shamanic logos is different from the Australia shamanic logos.
• 58:02
  There are similarities, but there are differences.
• 58:04
  For each one has its own logos.
• 58:06
  Hameed.
• 58:06
  We've kind of covered most of the topics in the appendix, but now I'd like to ask you with the having laid out the map or the principles, that the fundamental logos, the creative matrix, can take expression in various
• 58:24
  forms through various specific logoi to create different traditions and even to.
• 58:31
  And can be called forth by different circumstances and times and can even shift to be most appreciable by individuals.
• 58:41
  I'd like to ask you now about how you see the logos of the diamond approach comparing to the logos of other traditions.
• 58:51
  For example, what do they share and what's unique about the logos of the diamond approach?
• 58:58
  I thought you probably could do that better than me.
• 59:03
  You've got to be kidding.
• 59:09
  Well, I appreciate your sense of humor.
• 59:11
  Anyway, you know the diamond approach well.
• 59:15
  But you also know many other teaching.
• 59:18
  Well, you know, I mean, there are many things unique about the Dharma approach, but each logos has its uniqueness too.
• 59:26
  You know, each logos is unique and true and complete unto itself.
• 59:32
  You know, it's not like a logos or teaching.
• 59:35
  It has something missing.
• 59:36
  And there's something missing.
• 59:38
  It exists another logos.
• 59:39
  No, that's not the point.
• 59:40
  The logos is a complete thing on its own, is a complete path from beginning to end.
• 59:46
  If it is a truly teaching, true, genuine teaching.
• 59:49
  I don't mean anybody bringing about an idea.
• 59:52
  They think they created logos.
• 59:55
  As John mentioned before, it's not like each individual has a logos.
• 1:00:00
  You know, they're over teaching, you know, there are limited number of logo that has manifested in the world and then probably more will manifest in the future.
• 1:00:10
  I mean, one of the things that stands out for me in the diamond approach and I.
• 1:00:13
  I deeply resonate with this as opposed to perhaps the Eastern Lodi is the.
• 1:00:20
  The deep appreciation of the individual as well as the absolute and some tradition.
• 1:00:26
  The individual is just a fallacy.
• 1:00:28
  I mean, it's just something that's not real.
• 1:00:30
  But in this, the individual soul is absolutely part of the absolute and of importance and significance and we couldn't do without it.
• 1:00:41
  That is true, but it is not unique to their approach.
• 1:00:44
  It's true about most of the Western traditions.
• 1:00:47
  True.
• 1:00:48
  The Sufi, the Kabbalah, the Christian.
• 1:00:50
  I think they see the importance of both, you know, the fundamental truth and the individual soul.
• 1:00:57
  They're both important.
• 1:00:58
  So diamond approach.
• 1:01:00
  That's why I tend to think the Daan approach as more western than Eastern.
• 1:01:04
  Because of that it grew in the west, grew up.
• 1:01:08
  It happened here within the context of this, the culture, Western culture, even though I came from the Middle east, but that's sort of part of the sort of periphery the western culture really.
• 1:01:21
  So there are many things unique about that approach.
• 1:01:24
  I mean, the way aspects are looked at, understood and their role and function and the path.
• 1:01:31
  There's what we call the diamond approach, the diamond vehicles, which is how the wisdom carriers, the wisdom vehicle and all the aspects that constellate even a particular vehicle where it appears has present a wisdom about reality and life.
• 1:01:50
  And each one is different.
• 1:01:51
  Like the Diamond Guide has to do with the guidance of the path Diamond Dome has to do with how the role of knowledge knowing, like called this tuba has to do with the role of the heart of Love.
• 1:02:03
  Love, all aspects, ethicality, love.
• 1:02:06
  And each one of them present a particular wisdom important especially for living our life.
• 1:02:11
  How the teachings translate into living.
• 1:02:14
  And so that's important.
• 1:02:16
  And the way I the teaching looks as the fundamental ground, as five dimensions, five pure dimensions of reality.
• 1:02:27
  It's little.
• 1:02:28
  I mean the Sufis in the Kabbalah have different dimension, but differently than the way it is done.
• 1:02:34
  The Dayan approach, like the Sufi, they talk about planes of being and they gradated actually about which one is higher than the other.
• 1:02:42
  On the Dyan approach, there's no gradation in those dimensions.
• 1:02:46
  So that's different than the diamond approach.
• 1:02:48
  And also the diamond approach has in it.
• 1:02:53
  Although in this book I present more than undual view, which is an important part of darn approach.
• 1:03:00
  Another book I Present other realization, different kind of realization.
• 1:03:04
  So that approach includes other kava realization that are not what we call the non dual reality.
• 1:03:11
  Like there are realization in the diamond approach, part of the logos down approach, that are more similar to the Zen counter experience of suchness, for instance, which is very different from like the Tibetan perspective awareness, like Zen, when
• 1:03:27
  they talk about non dual, they don't mean what talks means by non dual, which is interesting.
• 1:03:33
  People read Zen says non dual.
• 1:03:35
  Oh yeah, it's the same thing.
• 1:03:36
  It's not if you really study it, they don't mean that.
• 1:03:40
  They just use the word that way.
• 1:03:43
  So I mentioned Zen because some of the realization then approach are similar more to the Zen.
• 1:03:49
  The non dual is similar to Mahayana or Vajrayana and to Vedanta.
• 1:03:54
  But other realizations are different.
• 1:03:56
  And some of the realization we have in that approach, I don't really know where they exist in other traditions.
• 1:04:02
  They're probably someplace some tradition, but I don't know.
• 1:04:06
  It's still manifesting new realization hasn't stopped.
• 1:04:10
  Yes, that's obvious.
• 1:04:11
  And we got a taste of that when we explored the path of love with you and your love trilogy.
• 1:04:16
  And clearly the ultimate is not finished with you.
• 1:04:20
  Yeah, it might continue after me too, who knows?
• 1:04:24
  Well, hopefully so in some way.
• 1:04:29
  Hopefully some of the people you've inspired it will continue through that.
• 1:04:34
  And it does seem that you have not only been the vehicle for a very comprehensive set of teachings, but which lay out a map and a path from entering the path all the way through to not one, but
• 1:04:49
  a variety of realizations.
• 1:04:52
  But you've also created an organization and a network of teachers now expanding the world who have the potential for carrying this teaching on.
• 1:05:02
  That's very rare and very helpful.
• 1:05:04
  Yeah.
• 1:05:05
  And I will say it's not like I created the teaching manifest that way.
• 1:05:09
  Teaching entertainment become obvious.
• 1:05:11
  What's needed.
• 1:05:12
  Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  Beautiful.
• 1:05:13
  Hameed we are coming towards the end of our exploration of the inner journey home.
• 1:05:19
  This is not the end.
• 1:05:20
  And I'll give a taste of what what's to come.
• 1:05:24
  But is there anything you would like to add?
• 1:05:26
  We've spent over a year now with having the privilege of dialoguing with you and you laying out basically an oral overview of this part of the path.
• 1:05:37
  What would you like to add?
• 1:05:39
  Well, I mean, I've been thinking about the two of you, how you engaged it, how you've been studying it and delving into it.
• 1:05:47
  And as you both see, by delving into it, you know, deeply like that, and really studying it, you get to have some experience.
• 1:05:59
  You're not just having mental understanding.
• 1:06:02
  Your experience is impacted.
• 1:06:05
  And that's what I hope the readers and listeners do when they take the book.
• 1:06:10
  They don't just.
• 1:06:12
  You don't just read it fast.
• 1:06:13
  You really want to take your time and contemplate each chapter, see what you can relate to, you know, what's true to you, how does it hit you?
• 1:06:25
  Each chapter is a whole contemplation.
• 1:06:27
  There's a whole big contemplation.
• 1:06:32
  So for many people, probably the book seem intimidating.
• 1:06:36
  That's why we don't want to think of it as a big volume.
• 1:06:39
  But you think of it as chapter by chapter.
• 1:06:42
  Even each chapter has sections that each section need to be contemplated on its own.
• 1:06:48
  And so the teaching is a transmission, the book is a transmission, and the transmission is the book.
• 1:06:55
  And so by contemplating it, we orient ourselves toward being open to the transmission that makes it possible to understand what the words mean, what the expression mean.
• 1:07:06
  So that's my.
• 1:07:07
  What I wanted to say to our listeners.
• 1:07:11
  We're ending, we're coming to the end of this book.
• 1:07:15
  Exploring this book.
• 1:07:16
  Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  And I would echo that.
• 1:07:18
  I mean both John and me, it has been a very deep immersive process and I think it really has been for us.
• 1:07:27
  And I think what you're inviting us all into is to the reading of this book as a what the Christians would call lectio divino, divine reading.
• 1:07:37
  And there, there's it's a multi stage process of first reading, usually quite short parts and then engaging intellectual reflection and then moving beyond intellectual reflection to actual meditation on the meaning of the text.
• 1:07:53
  And it really, in that sense, it really does become both a transmission and a transformation, as you're saying.
• 1:08:01
  Well said.
• 1:08:01
  Both John and I feel like we have not only been touched.
• 1:08:06
  Yeah.
• 1:08:06
  And I'm getting a little teary as I say this.
• 1:08:08
  Deeply touched and also transformed.
• 1:08:11
  And I'm Karen Johnson, who you work very closely with and in some ways has been a co creator with you when we first met a year ago.
• 1:08:21
  She doesn't waste time.
• 1:08:22
  She just said, well, how have these dialogues with Hameed changed you?
• 1:08:26
  And I'm still working with that question.
• 1:08:31
  In fact, when I saw her this weekend, saw you both this weekend, first thing I said was that question you asked a year ago.
• 1:08:38
  I'm still resting with it.
• 1:08:41
  So yes, certainly this is a book to be read in a contemplative way and to recognize it's a transmission.
• 1:08:48
  I think for me a couple things to say.
• 1:08:50
  One is just deep gratitude to you, Hameed, for being open to being a vehicle for the transmission and download of this incredible set of teachings and for the privilege of dialoguing with you and offering an oral overview of
• 1:09:11
  your work as given in the Inner Journey Home.
• 1:09:15
  It's been an extraordinary journey.
• 1:09:17
  And.
• 1:09:18
  And John and I have been really happy to receive multiple messages from people around the world talking about how touched they've been by these dialogues.
• 1:09:28
  And they range all the way from novices to people who've heard of you and think, oh, okay, maybe I should look at this to.
• 1:09:35
  Actually, very gratifyingly, some of your teachers have contacted us and said that, you know, it was really great.
• 1:09:41
  We didn't get this, or I'm getting something new and have been recommending it to their students.
• 1:09:46
  So that's been very touching.
• 1:09:48
  And this has come from around the world.
• 1:09:50
  So we've now completed the Inner Journey Home, but I'm happy to say that we're not finished, that you've agreed to dialogue about some of your other books which actually continue the journey into subsequent, what you call turnings.
• 1:10:05
  Describe your path as having gone through four turnings, and this book primarily emphasizing the first two and some of your others emphasizing the third and the fourth.
• 1:10:14
  And we'll get into those.
• 1:10:16
  And we're also hoping to dialogue with you and Karen Johnson, your co worker, about her book in which she laid out her account of the way in which the diamond approach was manifested and came into being.
• 1:10:30
  So it's been a wonderful journey.
• 1:10:32
  We are deeply, deeply grateful to those of you listening.
• 1:10:36
  I think we've all been offered an enormous gift and it's been a great privilege.
• 1:10:42
  Please, if you're listening, subscribe if you'd like to offer a review, that'd be wonderful.
• 1:10:47
  Enjoy the podcast.
• 1:10:48
  Tell your friends, maybe notify people on social media.
• 1:10:52
  And John and I do this as a contribution.
• 1:10:55
  It's our way of dialoguing with Hameed and some other wonderful people as a way of getting their ideas out.
• 1:11:00
  And hit like and subscribe.
• 1:11:02
  That helps a lot.
• 1:11:04
  There you go for mysterious.
• 1:11:06
  I don't totally understand, but people that are smarter than me say that's important.
• 1:11:10
  So hit subscribe and hit like.
• 1:11:13
  Yeah.
• 1:11:14
  And also to acknowledge the people behind the scenes who make this series and the podcast possible, we have Heidi Mitchell, who's our manager, and Vanessa Santos, who is our producer and media expert.
• 1:11:29
  And without them, it wouldn't happen.
• 1:11:31
  And Hameed, without you, this wouldn't have happened.
• 1:11:33
  And it's been a priceless privilege.
• 1:11:35
  And we are just very happy to be able to continue the exploration with you.
• 1:11:41
  Thank you so, so much.
• 1:11:43
  It's been life changing for us.
• 1:11:46
  I'm also grateful to the two of you who are giving this teaching an opportunity to present itself to your audience for more people to know of it and to immerse themselves in it.
• 1:12:00
  I'm very grateful, Thankful.
• 1:12:02
  Thank you both.
• 1:12:03
  Yeah.
• 1:12:04
  And we'll talk again.
• 1:12:06
  We will happily.
• 1:12:08
  Thanks so much.
• 1:12:09
  Hameed, thank you very much for being a part of this conversation.
• 1:12:14
  We hope that you were moved as we are moved, being part of it ourselves.
• 1:12:18
  We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself.
• 1:12:22
  It comes out of our pockets.
• 1:12:23
  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
• 1:12:33
  do, the more positive effect we can have on the world.
• 1:12:36
  So we've done that a couple of ways.
• 1:12:37
  But we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee.
• 1:12:40
  Very simple.
• 1:12:40
  And I do that with podcasts that I support and I find it's very satisfying.
• 1:12:45
  So thank you for your help.
• 1:12:47
  Thank you for your presence and thanking for all you are and all you do.
• 1:12:50
  We love you.