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Hameed Ali (A.H. Almaas) and Karen Johnson on Nondual Relationships
Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and I’m at the science and non duality conference in San Jose, California, which is annual pilgrimage for me for the past six years. And I’m honored to be speaking right now with Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson, I’ll just give a little biographical sketch of each one, we’re going to be speaking about non dual relationships. So Hameed, perhaps better known as A.H. Almaas, his pen name, was born in the Middle East, but at age 18, moved to the US to study at the University of California in Berkeley. And incidentally, I’ve interviewed him twice. So if you’re watching this online, or those of you here in the audience who would like to see the previous interviews, you can find them there. He was working on his PhD in physics, where he was studying Einstein’s theory of general relativity and nuclear physics when he reached a turning point in his life, and destiny that led him more and more into inquiry into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature. Hameed is the founder of the diamond approach, a spiritual teaching that utilizes a unique kind of inquiry into realization, where the practice is the expression of realization. This inquiry opens up the infinite creativity of our being transforming our lives into a runaway realization, moving from realization to further realization. I mean, its books include the inner journey home essence, the pearl, beyond price, luminous Night Journey and the unfolding now. Karen Johnson, participated, whom I’ve also interviewed on BatGap participated in the development of the diamond approach with Hameed. Since the 1970s. She has been teaching in the US and Europe for 35 years, she has an MA in psychology and trained as an artist and dancer, she has an interest in true spirit of scientific investigation, based on the love for truth. The underlying truth that manifests through the beauty and order of the physical and spiritual universe has been a motivating force in her life. So I mean, Karen wrote a book called divine arrows. And in light of that book, we’re going to be talking about non dual relationships, which in a way is sort of a oxymoron or contradiction in terms you know, when you say, non dual relationships, because non dual implies one and relationships implies more than one. But the great, famous non duelists, all the ones that I can think of, we’re very devotional people. You know, Shankara said, the intellect imagines duality for the sake of devotion. And he wrote beautiful devotional poetry, even though he was the great sort of founder of non duality. Ramana Maharshi is famous for his devotion to a mountain, actually, to Lord Shiva embodied in a mountain Arunachala Nisargadatta, after giving his non dual talks with and half the people would leave, he’d break into, you know, raucous bhajans and perform poojas and all sorts of devotional practices, and almost every, you know, traditional, non dual teacher like that had a guru who to whom he was devoted, not only in terms of his knowledge and service, but also his emotional his love. And yet, we just referred to three people who are all monks, and most of us are not monks. And you don’t live in monasteries and are engaged in or want to be engaged in relationships with, you know, our peers are fellow men and women. And so how do we reconcile our quest for Enlightenment and non dual realization with the complexities and challenges of relationship relation? Human relationships, I imagined? That’s one of the things we’ll be talking about here. Then maybe that’s a good starting point. How would you like to respond to that?
Karen Johnson: I think it’s exciting.
Rick Archer: Exciting.
Karen Johnson: Yeah. To think about how from that ground that we know as the Unity one of each of us express that differently, even when we’re in a state of non duality, we call it that we still aware that it’s our expense ranse so it’s coming through each individual consciousness. And if you’re feeling that oneness, it doesn’t necessarily mean the person next to you is feeling it, although you know, it’s their nature, you know that they could have access to it. But there’s something about the fact that there is an individual consciousness that is part of that oneness, that’s expressing itself. And that’s the beauty of really learning about what it means to be a real human being in the world and having contact that isn’t separated from that ground, that there’s a way that the consciousness is a living consciousness that has qualities, not it’s not just this kind of gray consciousness, it’s just knowledge and everything knows every, you know that there’s knowledge, and it’s got qualities of intelligence and strength and will and you know, there’s many colors and flavors to that consciousness. And the way it comes through us in life are real qualities of consciousness living consciousness, and that can interact with another living being. And the more we’re in touch with that unity that ground the more we can open to and become a conduit for those qualities to come through. But not just as an openness, that’s one possibility that we’re just open and that can come through. But as a personal myth, like as I’m talking to you, I feel like I’m nakedly here and in contact with you, that there’s an in touchiness, but it’s personal. And so we need to understand what it is to have individual consciousness that’s not separated from that ground. And that consciousness develops in a way that allows us to have a sense of personal wholeness without being a cookie cutter person. It’s a consciousness, that’s a true form of of humaneness. And when those two human beings that are in touch, it’s like, when those tips of the iceberg of which we are all, you know, really grounded underneath and consciousness when those tips begin to actually acknowledge one another in their fullness in totality, that can create the do the appeared, dual nature of relationship is actually just the individual expression of that ground. And that’s when the sparks can fly, or the, the differences can become interesting rather than divisive. And exchanges are enriching and valuable.
Rick Archer: Let me just throw something in quick before based on what you said before he made a response before because I’ll forget it. But seems to me that what people are seeking in relationship is a kind of a union, an intimacy. And using your iceberg analogy, you know, the ice, the tips of two icebergs can’t actually meet if it’s just the tips. And you know, but the sort of the larger iceberg maybe the two tips are actually part of the same iceberg just sticking up in different places. And if people could recognize their fundamental unity with everyone else, you know that Namaste means I recognize that part of you, which is part of me or whatever, there’s a we’re actually the same person expressing through different instruments. If then you could have actual intimacy where there’s total union, right?
Karen Johnson: Well, that’s actually those that design necessary. That’s why going inward and knowing what you are, is a significant component of what it means to have a real relationship, that you have to be willing to be alone. If you’re just going for relationship to avoid aloneness. You can’t really know that inner sanctum that you need to be able to be alone in your nature and know it for what it is for that to express itself personally. So it’s like a tip of an iceberg that says yes, I want to relationship is trying to head for the other peak, and they can’t get there. And so it means settling into that deep water and feeling the fact that one’s aloneness actually is the connection. And then that can be expressed in many ways.
A.H. Almaas: Nice. I made you want to respond to that. On that note, when you mentioned the various non dualist and how they were had a party connection. I also remember, which didn’t mention some of the merit Nisargadatta Maharaj has a wife, right, and Atmananda as a non numeric He was very devoted his life. And so you wonder how, how nobody, I don’t know if anybody asked him? How do you feel about your wife? Right. But I remember one time when I was into non duality and experience in learning, waking up one night when my wife, you know, you’re only a figment of my imagination that she was pleased about duality, that’s the perspective of non duality, everything is your own mind. Imagine she went back to sleep, you’re lucky, that’s all. Non dual experience, people think everything is beside the consciousness. So the vastness beingness. of non dual condition. Everything that manifested in not only unified but not really real, it’s sort of creation of the consciousness is no the real people and no real cars, they’re all one picture, that Nisargadatta said that consciousness is the greatest painter in the world, the whole world is a picture. So that’s true. That is true from non duality, we see everything is just one thing, it’s all on the whole universe, all of appearance, including all people are one fabric. And this fabric has variations in it as designs. And this design is all what we see what we experience in life. And part of that design are living beings, and those living beings can know what I know and can no consciousness to can experience the non duality. And because of that, there can be non dual relationship in the sense. First of all, one and the non duality can relate to somebody who’s not in non duality. I do it all the time.
Rick Archer: can relate? Yeah. Well, you do it all the time. But you think I can relate? Well, that’s interesting question. I mean, there are probably relationships in which there are billions of relationships in which neither partner has an inkling of non duality or interest in Enlightenment or awakening or inhales, there are probably some relationships where one partner is fervently interested in that sort of thing and may actually have awakened but the other is not and has made. And then there may be others where both are interested in both have awakened, yeah, so it may just need to sort of compare and contrast the quality, or the potential quality of relationships in those different scenarios.
A.H. Almaas: So we could discuss all of those, that’s the correct good classification. So as I said, you know, most people are not living in non duality. So far, I’m not living in a monastery or a cave, I interact with people who don’t know what non duality is, while I’m being a non dual or even some other more odd condition. Right.
Karen Johnson: And that’s really where the the knowledge of what it means to be the fullness of being arising within time and space, but not experiencing oneself within time. And space is really important, that that’s really the bridge. And it brings with it, the feeling of the various qualities and sensitivities of what it means to be talking to someone who’s not where you are, or to be able to know, to also honor the value and beauty of what they are, regardless of how they know themselves. So that the personal reverence for another being, regardless of where they are, is, is fundamental to relating to somebody.
Rick Archer: Sure. And you know, a person who has a nicely blossomed heart and you want to have compassion and all that is going to have a range of reverential attitude toward everyone and to animals and everything else. But I guess the question is,
Karen Johnson: that’s not necessarily personal. You can have kindness and act in a very kind way, but it isn’t necessarily particularly responsive in that moment, in a personally contact full way, that’s got a different flavor to it.
Rick Archer: So you mean someone with whom you live and with whom you’re extremely familiar, but is that what you’re implying by personal here?
Karen Johnson: No, by personal I mean, a quality of consciousness that makes you feel like there’s actually somebody there, that there’s someone there not just a, not just a compassionate presence, but a compassionate presence. Like a feeling of I’m here with you in a competitive
A.H. Almaas: tool is wrong or to the other person, attune to the qualities of capacities that where the other person is to be person, you have to acknowledge and recognize and experience and feeling. Who is the other piece of what are they about, where they’re at. and responding to all of that makes it personal to them.
Karen Johnson: Like they’re a person Yeah, in their own right, wherever they are. Yeah. And what I am is in, there can be some contact that, like, when you’re personal with somebody you feel there’s a contact fullness.
Rick Archer: So you’re talking about the capacity to really tune into and empathize with who whomever you’re interacting with. And not just be acting out of habit or, or, you know, with any kind of constricted awareness, but to really appreciate the depth of the person and their individual expression.
A.H. Almaas: Yeah. And it’s not just a matter of not a habit. Also, not an a generic way. And people think if somebody is enlightened, and they’re loving, they just love everybody generically. Because there’s love. So there’s love for everybody. Why buy personal here, we mean, there is the generic the universal love for everybody, but it can’t be personalized, specifically directed to particular person, and the way they need it. Yeah. And the way they need it, there are teachers, non dual teachers who don’t know how to do that, because they haven’t developed the personal capacity. So we’re saying the person wellness is quality of consciousness. Pure Consciousness can manifest a particular quality we call personal, that allows universal non dual consciousness, to be personal with a particular person,
Karen Johnson: it actually might be important to mention that we see there’s sort of two lines of awakening, one has an inner awakening that inner aloneness, where you are in touch with the ground and the nature of being the presence. There’s another line that’s more of a development of that individual consciousness that develops and matures and becomes a Well, at first it becomes an ego structure. But we see that as just a and not a mistake, not as a bad thing. But that it’s an Arrested Development, in a sense, and that we need to continue the development of the person on to being impressed by being itself to go beyond and into new areas of capacity and fullness, and, and presence. So you’re a person of presence that has the capacities to function in the world, and has the relational capacity, that awakening, the first way is not necessarily a relational development. It’s an inner identity, awakening to what you are as an identity. The other is more of a how does that get expressed personally, through this conduit. So that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about, mean, that’s why I brought it up to begin with, because you have to really know what it means to be in the moment as a person before you can actually have a personal relationship. And we begin wherever we’re at, regarding that. And we can use relationships to actually help one another mature. I mean, I think everybody here has been in a relationship, you run into trouble. You either work it out with somebody, and you kind of move into another level of oh my god, I didn’t think this was gonna work out. But actually, I feel deeper, I feel more in touch with you, I’m feeling more my love, you get vulnerable, you have to be real, you have to be willing to take that next step and really talk about how you feel and something starts to change and grow and develop. And you either become aware that you need to separate maybe that really isn’t working with the two of you, after many, many, many of these things are learning about one another. Or we’re really coming together in ways we never imagined. So there’s something growing or something changing. There’s something expanding between you and that’s how we feel relationships are incredibly valuable tools for dual awakening instead of it As one as really, the relationship becomes one vortex of being,
Rick Archer: I have an old friend that I’ve known since the seventh grade. And he got in touch. And they recently told me that he and his wife of 28 years or something, were getting divorced. And the explanation he gave was that well, we just ran out of steam. And my thought was, well, I mean, you needed to, you need to keep building up ahead of steam, you know, to use the steam engine analogy. And if you’re not kind of replenishing and augmenting the steam, so to speak, on a regular basis, then it can be depleted. And just one more little bit on that is that if, you know, if you don’t have the steam, then there’s a tendency to want to get steam from the other person. In other words, the relationship is about taking. And if both people are taking no one gets, but if both people are giving, than both receive. So there has to be sort of an abundance of, you know, an overabundance of steam, I don’t know how it got to the steam. My friend’s analogy
Karen Johnson: getting interesting,
Rick Archer: has been
Karen Johnson: Tell me about the steam.
Rick Archer: If there’s an overabundance of that.
Karen Johnson: I like steam,
Rick Archer: my cup runneth over. And there’s, there’s, you know, you have enough for yourself and more to give,
Karen Johnson: right, but we also have needs, and those needs we want to have met. And that can create a huge implosion, that puts out the fire when we feel like our needs aren’t being met. So there’s a lot of different dynamics that can come into it. And people do grow apart. And that does become a real thing, legitimate, but also, I mean, dynamics between relationships are so powerful, and there’s so much to understand there. But it can be used to fuel the fire of truth, to really find out what the truth of the relationship is. And not just, let’s really work on it. So we stay together. Now let’s work on it to find if you’re really interested in realization, you have to be interested in what’s real. And that means between two people, and what’s true might not be what you want to have happen, or what’s the most comfortable thing. But it’ll end up being the right thing. If you’re both really interested in that. So for me, it’s not a matter of how do you keep one another together? But how do you use it to really optimize what’s supposed to come through the two of you, or the at which is really in a relationship, you can become one. So one that you can’t tell yourself apart from the other not an emerged way, but that you feel it’s like a well oiled machine when it’s working. Well, I mean, it when you fall in love, you feel like you’re really intertwined and dancing, the same dance and you’re responding and it’s, it’s a beautiful dance, and then something happens and you go, what the hell happened to that, you know, it was so perfect. And it brings out all the stuff that isn’t that way, and then you work your way back to it, but I could chat on.
A.H. Almaas: One day, one thing to remember is that can talk about individual consciousness which which can develop and mature which is part of spiritual development, spiritual development has the awakening to our true nature, and the individual consciousness that’s always learning and developing and able to manifest different qualities, different skills and knowledge. Now, a relationship is itself unified consciousness when there is a relationship becomes real, the to create a field unified field, and thus unified field become like a living consciousness on its own, that can stagnate or can grow and develop and grows or develop, if the to actually work it out. As Karen said, so, I wanted to bring in that relationship is like a person. Relationship is a being on its own, and says, can be more alive and more that it can lose steam mean you know, just like a person loses steam and they get depressed or they become more alive, more lively and more discoveries and more openness and, and that way in the field itself, expand at the beginning might be just a small field between two people, but of the two people are really learning and expanding. Then they both can get into non dual experience together. Yeah, and both be in an under I’ll place together a C, and that will be an interesting thing for relationships to happen. So we need to talk about a real or true relationship apart from, which is. So when we say non dual, it’s a large category that includes something like a true relationship, even before people know what is non duality. And the sense that they are real. Sometime people are real, emotionally real, and they’re honest with each other. And they’re really there with each other. And sometimes there is a sense of presence as consciousness that even those non dual, and but that can develop all the way to non duality, and relationship can grow through all of those stages. And felt, yeah,
Rick Archer: I wonder if the two of you would like to speak from your personal experience? You’re both married. Right? And so far, we’ve heard about your wife being an illusion and the other night. But do you feel like I, if it’s, if you don’t mind my asking you and you do both sort of, do your spouse’s have the same sort of zeal about Enlightenment and awakening and all that, that you do? And? And if not, has that created difficulties? Or if if they do, then what sort of blessings? Do you feel that that has brought to your respective relationships?
A.H. Almaas: Yeah, good question. First, my wife been interested in the inner work from the beginning. That’s how we met, we met and work, you know, so she definitely is interested and is developed, and she’s a teacher, herself,
Rick Archer: a diamond teacher, she’s
A.H. Almaas: a dominant pro teacher, she’s just not the same development that I have. You see, you know, so there is a mutuality or recognition for each other and the qualities of each other, but also recognizing how the relationship has evolved. Throughout the time, there were time there were there was intensity of being in love, and the usual thing that people have, and then became more mature, rather than just two adults who respect each other, and their quality. And there are difficulties, there are things he does, I still don’t like, like her not to do. And sometimes she doesn’t like the way I do things, or my choices, or the way I talked. So all that still happens, you see. And
Karen Johnson: funny how when those things happen, though, they’re much less a figment of your imagination. But I mean, one thing that’s been awkward at times that we’ve actually all had to really work with is that Hamid and I, throughout the years have had a very intense friendship, that’s very unusual, and that the work has developed through. So we have a great I mean, nobody knows one another the way we know each other, and it’s very strong, and we have a tremendous desire to be together a lot. And so that’s put pressure on various in various ways.
Rick Archer: You also have very strong marriages. Actually, I can’t imagine too many marriages in which people would have
Karen Johnson: difficulty. And it puts pressure in various ways that we’ve had to work through and manage and so on. So I don’t think we’re a good example of what’s possible for everyone. But I do think it does bring to highlight how I mean, many people have very strong friendships outside their marriages that can cause all different kinds of difficulty people expect to have everything happen with one other person. And the fact is that you have many relationships in your life, and each one plays a very important part. I knew I mean, since I was 22. And the minute we met each other, it was like, click. That’s it. And it was it’s always been that way. Yeah. And we didn’t marry each other. We didn’t. I mean, there’s a way in which we were following some, some kind of force that did not put us in that situation that we had feelings for others and marriage wasn’t part of it. But we have a kind of bond. That’s extremely unusual. And it’s got a tremendous amount of power to it. And really, we see that as it’s for the work. Yeah. And and
Rick Archer: there’s many of the ordained arrangement.
Karen Johnson: I don’t know.
A.H. Almaas: sometimes wonder how come we didn’t get gold? Trout? Yeah, go that route to getting married? Oh, right. Yeah. Why didn’t we do that? Sometimes we wonder, and one of the ideas we have, probably would have gotten too busy with the kids. Could be that instead of developing the teaching, yeah. And getting involved, we don’t know. But that’s, you know, one possibility. One of the things
Karen Johnson: we see that actually puts the fire out with some people is getting involved in the practical details of life, and comfort, security, all of the things that are instinctual level deals with to get established. And so working through those instinctual things, it’s very important for people to be able to have shelter and work and all of those things, but there’s a lot of libido that gets lost in those things.
A.H. Almaas: But that’s the question of steam
Karen Johnson: We didn’t have that yeah, issue of, of establishing house and home and division of labor and you know, that kind of stuff. So I think that that’s some of that,
Rick Archer: that’s I mentioned libidos getting lost in those things. In your case, libido wouldn’t really be a practical or useful.
Karen Johnson: We see libido is showing up in every relationship, that with your girlfriends, I mean, you get together and you cut that looks really good on you. I mean, you get all excited, and oh my god, you’ve got to have these shoes with bat and you know, or whatever, you know, it’s like, it’s like, you get excited and, and women can be very touchy with one another when you’re There’s comfort, there’s holding, there’s lots of different things, or there’s the erotic if you’re, you know, your sexual orientation is is toward a another woman than the men they have their own way of dealing with their erotic nature with one another the things they get excited about, just bumping, yeah. Whatever
A.H. Almaas: to say about the question steam losing steam, but I noticed and many relationships, especially marriages, they lose steam, because of the power of the instincts, the instinctual needs, survival, safety, companionship, all all these things that become institutionalized in a marriage, and stamped by the state, right, you’re married. Now your bank accounts are connected, tyrant account, and all of that. So so the relation in time, it seems, becomes dominated by taking care of the last external, physical in concern and needs, at the expense of the libido and the energy. And that can kill the energy and the libido. Yeah, because it’s like, we’re comfortable together, we’re fine, in the sense that we’re living together. But there isn’t the liveness there, the love itself sort of can stay there and a little sweetness, but there isn’t that passion. That’s power of attraction. Because those other things, especially as people get older, they’re very important. As you know, that’s why divorce is so difficult. And separation, it can be very painful and disorienting for people because, you know, the whole field of the relationship is not just a psychological emotional thing, but has all kinds of physical ramifications and safeties, and support and all that.
Karen Johnson: And that’s why a lot of times people to be able to have the intimacy they need to actually get away from their life. They go on vacation, and then they can look in each other’s eyes over candlelit dinners and feel spacious. Rather than actually practicing together, working the issues out not distracting themselves from it, but finding time to be together and work in a way that brings in their realization of of being to the relationship and take risks. People stop taking risks is what I noticed. They don’t challenge the relationship and ways that brings the life to it, they stay with comfort, they stay with all the security and don’t say, you know, this isn’t working for me, am I willing to risk all of that for the truth of what I’m actually feeling. And sometimes it’s little risks. It’s not like, Okay, I gotta dump the whole thing. But we need to be willing, just like in our own realization, we need to let all of that go. To be able to find something new there, rather than trying to get back to the same place all the time. The same thing happens externally. We have an idea of the relationship, a sense of what it was, and we try to get back to it instead of this isn’t happening. What’s happening? What’s going on for us? Instead of let’s try to do that again. No, let’s find out what’s here and dip into that together. And that’s a very risky proposition, because you might not find anything, or you might not find what you want to find. And that’s hard for people.
Rick Archer: What Amelia was saying about the sort of mundane practicalities kind of dampening the it can’t Yeah, you know, I mean, think of it let’s, we all have a spark of genius. And you know, imagine that Steve Jobs had to work on an assembly line, stamping out widgets for eight hours a day or something like that, it would be extremely frustrating and stressful, and you’d kill the genius in him, you know, and so, and yet, we just have to be stamped. And somebody’s got to do it. So it seems to me that and the practicalities of life, we all have to deal with it. Yeah. And so somehow there has to be a way of replenishing and the genius in essence, I mean, the emotional genius, as well as the creative genius. And in in the face of and in spite of, we’re in the midst of the mundane practicalities that we all have to deal with. It’s kind of like being able to sort of have, you know, both simultaneously, rather than either or
Karen Johnson: right. Well, there’s also some elements needed for a relationship to actually take hold in this way, which is a real commitment to one’s own willingness to go in and practice, but also the willingness to really see the other. And not just the projections and the ideas and the things that are in there, there’s so many things that we put on another person that aren’t really who they are, when we begin to, we need to peel those off of somebody, and willing to really listen to them and hear them and not just want to be seen by them, but want to see them and being
A.H. Almaas: having realized non duality does not remove those projections automatically. One can be non dualistic realized, and still project and individual people, different things. That’s one thing we’ve learned. So non dual realization does not delete all our psychological baggage, including our relational baggage. So one thing for instance, you know, important that we’re discussing related to our connection. I think, Karen, myself, for instance, one thing we discovered how the spark the connection continues, is, as Karen mentioned it, letting it go several times an hour, fairly, for years, we’ve known each other. We thought, that’s it. We know, one of us confronted that or didn’t like something and were mad about something. And we thought that was the end of it. And we we both gave up on it. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s called the death of the relationship. Just like there’s ego death. There is a depth of relay, which was that we did as far as we’re concerned with that we don’t know what what’s going to come arises after after that. And from that death, what arises after that what we discover, we discover what is the relay? What is it? What is our relationship reading? What is the connection? What is the nature of that connection? That’s what we discovered through the death and that went through several stages, that many deaths you see, and that is the thing that most people are not willing to do not willing to let go complete evaluation believing they let go it’s gonna be gun doesn’t just like when you with ego that doesn’t mean you’re going to die physically. Although it feels I bet you actually
Karen Johnson: feel like it is it feels like you’re gonna die. Because those junctures I thought, Okay, this is all been great. Yeah. I can’t imagine life going on without this friendship. But that looks like what’s happening. grief comes all those stages, you know, feeling frustrated about angry about it, grief hurt all that. And then it’s like this different levels of emptiness kept showing up. And then something started to build again, what were you feeling? Well, I’m feeling this way. And that’s actually how we began to discover different ways of experiencing reality. So we began to use the relationship, actually, for our realization.
Rick Archer: Sounds like it was sort of a shifting of gears. Yeah, you can’t shift into second gear until you pull it out of first gear, and, you know, and there, and there’s kind of a intermediary stage between first and second, second, third, and so on, when you’re not in any gear there for a moment. Yeah.
A.H. Almaas: And you don’t know that they’re going to be another gear. Yeah, you don’t know. Just like an ego death, you don’t know this is gonna be the end or not, you give up you surrender, you think that’s it gonna be the end of everything. And then the illumination arises, and there’s a rebirth. That happens. And you realize, oh, you still exist, but in a different way, as a being of light, as non dual, you know, unity of the universe, or whatever. The same thing happens with relationship. And that’s what I notice, for most people, they just don’t have that idea. They don’t think that relationship can die and be reborn. They don’t know that they think you can get negative or positive, it goes up and down. But to completely die, completely gone. And, and come back again. Most people are just most books that actually about relationship don’t mention that. And for us, is really an important teaching about relationships. And that is how if that happens, the steam is powerful. Steam is the new rear rebirth, of steam of energy, different GM energies, a different kind of connective in different kinds of love, you know, different different ways of knowing each other different things we know about ourselves and each other. And that is a potential of these relationships.
Karen Johnson: So so we’re runaway realization together. But what I’m realizing right as we’re talking is that that’s the way we approach our experience from the very beginning. Yeah, just wanting to find out what it was. And we kept losing what we thought we were gonna run up against whatever realization we were in, we’d stay there for a while and recognize essence, or any quality of essence, and then emptiness and love and all these dimensions, and then we’d wake up one day, and it’d be gone. And then we’d want to have it back again. But that wasn’t what was happening. So we had to let it go. And then we realized another dimension of something. So it’s really how our entire process in our solitary realization went. And then at some point, that became much more focused on our relationship, and what our relationship was about. So the same thing started to happen. relationally. And I think part of the dynamism between us is what unlocked certain secrets about uni locality and some of the things that Hameed was talking about in his talk. Some of the different ways of looking at things that are beyond dual and non dual that actually happened because of our relationship. And I think that’s part of the the design or something that was happening. That took us to the point of being able to use the duality for the dynamic flow to happen to open things up, it needed a supercharge kind of situation.
Rick Archer: Speaking of shifting gears, I’m going to shift gears here and throw up something and see where it takes us. This might seem a little strange, Robin Williams famously said that God gave man both a penis and a brain but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time. Think
Karen Johnson: she was smart?
Rick Archer: For instance, or or that, you know, the same applies to women, they that astronaut who put on diapers so she could drive all the way from Texas to Florida to intervene with her romantic rival or something and not have to make bathroom breaks on the way remember that about five years ago? So people do crazy things when they you know, get stirred up. And it seems to me that the energies that are that are responsible for the nourishment and blossom blossoming of the heart, are the same energies that are responsible for that crazy stuff. And it’s kind of a matter of channeling them appropriately and learning how to channel them into higher expressions, perhaps not to say that there’s anything wrong with the physical expression of them. But in many circumstances, it’s not appropriate. And so if those energies are stirred up, rather than chasing them into the immediate temptation, learning how to redirect them, and and have them nourish the heart and the mind and everything else, what do think about that?
Karen Johnson: That’s true Tantra?
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Karen Johnson: actually, it’s not acting out on whatever feeling you’re having. But learning how to hold it in such a way that’s not containing it, but allowing the energy to flow and letting that express itself and bring understanding
A.H. Almaas: You know, people think that we are two. We’re not.
Rick Archer: You mear you and I, are you and her. I said that as last time I interviewed you said Our hearts are one
A.H. Almaas: yeah, yes, I was eperiencing that that I can experience again. But in general, there is the capacity to be one with somebody else. That arises. It’s it’s it’s the capacity to be one with another does not arise from non dual experience, nondual experience doesn’t make you feel that makes you feel you and the other are not separate. But there are other kinds of realization, where you feel you and others are one and the same thing. And that is you can experience those with anybody with anything. However, can I we discover that we are one all the time,
Rick Archer: but always the same to the same degree or is it
Karen Johnson: your Siamese twins
Rick Archer: separated at birth?
Karen Johnson: Never separated. never born.
A.H. Almaas: So we’re one and some interesting ways. Not everybody is going to find that and their relationship, events happens and human life that some people, two people that can’t be married can’t be friends. They might not even know each other. But they’re one. The two sides of the same thing.
Rick Archer: They mean like a soulmate kind of thing. It’s
A.H. Almaas: even more close than soulmates as one soul.
Rick Archer: Well, that’s interesting. Have you ever had any kind of past life flashes? About your where you both came from?
A.H. Almaas: We sort of have some that? Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: I mean, I’ve heard that said that, you know, sometimes a single soul will split into two and occupy different bodies to serve various functions. And so yeah, sort of like that. That’s what it feels like. Yeah. Interesting.
A.H. Almaas: Yeah. So as a result, we, it’s easy for us to be one, we sitting next to each other. And we were one at different kinds of ways. One, you know, sometimes we were walking, go walk walks together, like we just went on a walk. And Ken says, who’s walking? I say nobody. And when I say nobody’s walking, I don’t mean that to nobody’s is one Nobody? Nobody, that is one. This is very paradoxical language. But it is experientially it’s possible to be one without the one being a body or being an object. But one condition of realization. And there are different degrees in different level different kinds. You know, that’s the thing about relationship. You see, that’s the thing I think, you know, why we called it an underworld, we thought this should be called non dual relationship, because people think non duality, how do you have relationship and non duality doesn’t make sense. And sometimes they will teach us say relations are not important, but there are many of them are married, right. So you wonder what is that thing to their partner? Right. But then the question is, people also need dog know, there are other ranges of relating to somebody else. Different from the usual different ways of being intimate being connected, being in contact than our familiar to Arthur, there are many kinds,
Rick Archer: I’m gonna give a few examples.
A.H. Almaas: Well, current talks about the contact feeling person contact. The other one is the one you remind me when I felt our heart were one. Another example I just gave you that we are one, you see, sometimes we are one, as one presents, sometime we are one as the non dual universe, we are both the non dual universe. Without us, we are to be the neither two that no one and sometimes we are both, there’s two in the sense that be talking to each other, but there’s one we are the same being. And that same being be non dual, or can be an individual being, you see, so, and many others, you know, I can, you know, math come up, as we talk. But you know, I’m saying the crucible, or the the context of relationship is the ratio of possibilities of discoveries, of learning about our humanities and our potential, including our spiritual potential that many people don’t know about, and the average person doesn’t know about. And many people who are involved in non dual teaching, don’t know, but you need to go to other ranges of experience to find out.
Karen Johnson: Think, for most relationships, what we would say is that love really is the connecting link. And the feeling of an attraction to somebody, whether it’s a friend, or whatever kind of relationship, it is, that love it that plays a central part of that, that brings people together and makes you want to be close or acknowledge the closeness that’s there. I mean, I know mothers that actually they love their children, but they don’t necessarily like some one of them. Or, and they feel bad about but they don’t like the person that they’re becoming. But their love makes them feel they want to nurture them and all of that, and then they can’t wait for him to kick them out, or whatever they do. But love is part of that relationship. So love is a very common denominator of the person that you want to be around or near or with. But that love can express itself in many different ways. It can mean an intimate relationship with someone, it can mean a friendship, it can you know, they have different, there’s different kinds of love. But that’s a very important thing is a feature of relationships we have, we don’t just have the same relationship with anyone when we’re in a total non dual condition. We actually feel that well being and openness goodness toward everyone. But there isn’t this specific love coming in a specific way to a specific person. So this brings in the whole question of what attracts us to a particular person what brings that kind of love? It’s a much larger question than just oh, it reminds me of my father or my this or my that we don’t know. It’s a mystery what draws us and as we work through the things that have drawn us if it is mostly based on history, those if we’re really wanting to know the truth, those layers of the onion peel away over time and as we work through them, we can actually ignite something that’s deep within that onion more central to what’s real. But some of us are attracted to people who we know from the minute we meet them that there’s a surge of yes there’s a big fat yes here and I don’t understand it my laundry list is not happening here. He doesn’t look the way I think he should he doesn’t act the way he doesn’t have the education IANA having, where’s the way wrong kind of shoes, and I’m totally in love. I’m in love and what is that love? It’s drawing you to that person and you have no control. There’s absolutely no control over who you fall in love with and something else is attracting and so there’s there’s a lot already in usually experience. You don’t have to be mystical to fall in love and follow that.
Rick Archer: Well, you know, it’s Buddy Holly said it’s so easy to fall in love. But the trick is to stay in love but not obviously not in the sort of hormonal frenzy that might initially characterize falling in love, but something that will stand the test of time and continually be replenished and redefined as you go along. So does the diamond approach have techniques or approaches or practices or something to facilitate that?
A.H. Almaas: Yeah, we have inquiry. We know our main approach is inquiry.
Rick Archer: That sounds like an intellectual thing. No, I think of the heart as being such an important thing.
A.H. Almaas: Maybe you could say something about inquiry is how Smith intellectual.
Karen Johnson: Okay. inquiry for us sounds like an intellectual thing. What we do an inquiry is we validate all the capacities of the human being, there’s the capacity for discrimination that is a mental faculty, but you have to for inquiry to deepen into being and actually follow that continuum, you have to love the truth for its own sake. And that has a power to it that builds over time, the more you get in touch with who you are, the more that love is really the fuel. And that becomes the dictating force. So that’s the beacon is, what’s my experience right now? And that brings the belly, and what am I feeling right now? Whatever it is, whatever I’m feeling, that’s what I’m gonna go into. And I have to be able to accept what’s here, whether it’s a reaction, maybe it’s an aspect of my being that showing up at some kind of feeling of reality, whatever my experience is, I want to know the truth of that. And that is where the heart main force of love and draw deeper into what that real interval of it is. So it’s a love story. It’s a, it’s a fire. And the more we’re on fire with a question of what am i What is this mean? And who am I and where am I going? The more you’ve got? The desire? Really, that’s how we use desire. I mean, that brings in the belly that brings in our libido of feeling that energy for inquiry, it’s not just taking the blade of truth and going into your experience and, you know, kind of circum ambulating? No, it’s you have to be the more you’re on fire with a question, the more you feel like you really want to know, and I will, I really feel like I, I’ve been pondering this, and I am experiencing this feeling. And I want to know, its nature, the more that’s there, the more that allows that blade a truth, to cut through the layers of the onion, and show what they are, and peel them back so that we understand the situation. But it’s not an understanding with my mind, it’s an understanding of, oh, there’s impressions and hurts and wounds and feelings that start to flow out. And as we see those and understand them, we experience the opening to something else. But it has to be really fueled by the love to know, not just that it’s really a curiosity fueled by inquiry
A.H. Almaas: for us is experiential. Ramana Maharshi, called his method inquiry. And the main question, Who am I? Our question is, what is the truth of what’s happening to me now? Where am I now? What’s going on? I mean, everything, not just what I’m thinking, what am I feeling? Or what’s happening in my body? What state I am in? It’s trying to find that what is that? And that is continual inquiry, that if if you continue it, it will peel the all the layers of the onion to reveal the underlying illumination
Karen Johnson: is the blade is is from the inside. And that fervor to know the truth is that, that truth rising up, we think of it as the questions that are showing up and we understand them, and then something emerges that helps to deepen and you have an insight, when actually, something’s moving through bringing the questions that’s tickling the mind, the heart and the body, to open to it. If we look at it from the outside in, it looks like we’re having curiosity and we’re interested and we’re loving the truth. But actually, this this arising is our nature coming to the fore, that’s throwing those things out, like breadcrumbs to follow in, kind of
A.H. Almaas: Yeah, but this thought that you’re asking whether there is a method about working with relationship. And I wanted to say inquiry, but different kinds of inquiry, specific inquiry that has to do with a relationship. We call it dialectic inquiry and the sense that two people like you and I are inquiring into Our relationship at the present moment what’s happening now? What are we feeling? Do I like you? Are you scared of me? Why? What’s that about? Are we both feeling the same thing or differently what are they, that is we call dialectic inquiry or dialectic inquiry requires, besides the individual inquiry, which Karen talks about, which involves heart, body and mind all of it together, it requires mutuality, mutual respect, mutual consideration, it requires reciprocity, because people reciprocate, not just one person engage, it requires openness to mutual influence, to usual and mutual mutual, if there is no mutual influence, there is no dialectic inquiry, I have to be willing to be influenced by you. And I have to be willing to influence you. And we and we interact that way. There is an inquiry and so the dialectic of inquiry is an interaction and the living out of the of the of the relationship, but in a way, by not only leaving it out, leaving it out, to find out what it is to let it grow to let it develop.
Rick Archer: So let’s say that, hypothetically, my wife and I were decided to go to Berkeley and yeah, and get involved in the diamond approach. And we heard you explain all this. And then what kind of what would you send us home with, to do on a daily basis, to actually to actualize what you’re saying and actually make progress.
A.H. Almaas: I said, some of the elements, when I first thought, like the inquiry has been 10 days for a treat. Each day, each meeting two meetings a day, each breathing was a different element of it. It’s pretty involved teaching. It has many factors, facets, to what needs to be looked at there is responsibility, we have to be responsible for ourselves, and responsibility, how we impact the other, I mentioned respect, there is a valuing of oneself value, there are many things involved. And I like the inquiry, and they’re not all easy, for most people want to be responsible for themselves. And then respectful way for the other person is the mature thing to do. And not everybody has that kind of maturity. So it is a practice, we call the practice because it takes time to learn how to it’s a skill to develop.
Karen Johnson: But it also it also requires that you have a certain level of knowledge of what you are on your own. So if you flew out to Berkeley to get involved in the diamond approach, what you’d find yourself doing is getting involved in a group that would teach you practice or a teacher that would personal teacher, maybe we have different ways that we do it. But someone who would teach you practices and meditations on your own and work with you to get you in touch with yourself. The dialectic inquiry actually evolved down the road it isn’t something that just showed up and it became part of a development of the individual consciousness that we were talking about earlier. So you would learn more about what it meant to be in touch with your essence What’s you and be able to speak from there and to be able to have some development of the more personal level
Rick Archer: but about 10 minutes left when we want to take time for questions I can keep coming up with questions I could follow up with a question but I want to make sure that we give the audience opportunity to ask something if they want to. So anyone have something the guy in the back of the red shirt and the best wait for the mic okay yeah
A.H. Almaas: microphone Yeah, I have a following question namely that I discovered recently you’ll see that what gives a strength to my love is dangerous involvement also on another plane that is to say that me and my lover apart from loving each other in addition to that we are both passionately interested in something and then I found out that that what made this very strong restaurant love and connection can you say something about it?
Karen Johnson: I’m not sure I understood that.
Rick Archer: think they share a mutual passion for something and that has gotten a solidified their connection and you know, made made their relationship more solid. Is that what you
A.H. Almaas: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. That suddenly with pounded apart from love. Yeah, yeah, we also got together like, say, for example, into, into into teaching certain kinds of teaching. And this is this process of, of working together or something like that absolutely strands and that laugh, we tell us,
Karen Johnson: well, the if I’m understanding you correctly getting involved in something passionately, especially when it has an effect of enriching you, each personally on your own, actually enrich and both of you at the same time to actually have that. Like for me tonight, what really stimulated our relationship and allowed us to actually let it go at times was the fact that we loved the truth more than we loved, what we were going to get from each other. And that that truth was the core of our teaching, and that we love the teaching, we gave our life up for the teacher, we’ve given up many things in our life, for the teaching, we will continue to give up many things in our life, for the teaching, if it comes to whether it’s going to be good for the teaching, or just good for us. It’s whatever is going to be good for the teacher. And that passion about that actually, is what our relationships are from amulets around. So to have that kind of passion for something, especially when you’re discovering new things together and discovering truths about yourself in relation to that, that has just a flowering effect. And always just being focused on one another for that is, again, the two tips of the iceberg trying to connect when actually you’re wanting to go into something else. That’s, that’s really connecting both of you. So I think that’s great.
A.H. Almaas: That I think that kind of passion he talked about, is really what happens in many good friendships, and many good collegial relationships, pure working together. So did you collegial relationship, and they are involved in studying the same thing passionately? Interested in relationship develops, there can be a lifetime relationship. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Okay, we have several questions will mic lady can decide where to take it.
Karen Johnson: Mic lady. So I’m also a diamond heart teacher a student for about the last two and a half years. So I’d love the inquiry process. One thing I’m curious about, is when you mentioned one soul, and I’ve had similar experiences with various different people in my life, and I’m wanting a little bit more description of what that looks like, in my experience has been that I was so connected to certain people that even not being in the room with them, I could feel their presence, and their presence could be talking to me. And it was different than a soulmate relationship. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about the one soul relationship in relationships?
Rick Archer: It’s possible, let’s try to give concise answers. So we get two or three more questions. We do that
A.H. Almaas: without remember, when we if we didn’t always know that it was a discovery, spiritual discovery. And the beginning we didn’t like it. We didn’t want to be one. Everybody wanted to be our one. I wanted to be myself if you want to be herself, wanted to be autonomous beings. So it took a while. You know, for us to accept the fact that we are we are one. So people who like being one from the beginning, I wonder what kind of what they’re talking about whether 3d real, the real oneness we’re talking about is very challenging, very scary, most human being, wouldn’t want to think people want to be themselves. And they think to themselves mean a tamas, autonomous, singular. So to be one, which can happen. It first of all, we need to know it’s challenging. It’s scary. And it’s rare at the same time, but it does happen.
Karen Johnson: I think one thing I can say briefly is what you’re talking about, too, has to do with a loving connection with somebody that mothers and their children, their parents and their children often feel they’re connected twins very frequently will feel things that are happening. So there’s different kinds of connections. So it takes a long time to explain all the different ways that but it might not be one soul but it might be knowing the presence of somebody else in a way that connects you to them.
A.H. Almaas: I don’t think you know, there are a few instances in history when that was the case, about one soul, like one famous one that I remember, is Romeo and chirps. That’s an example of how spark happened between two people. And people thought there were two people. But when really the way Rumi talks about it, you can see some places how he and Shams are one.
Audience Member: There’s a line from Rumi, which goes up and be the friend, then you can eat from a poison jar and taste only clear discernment. So my question is about this dimension of the friend, not a friend or friendship as a category, or a special case of relationship, but of a dimension. In relationship that comes and goes or there’s a, there’s an ebb and flow to it. So for instance, my son and I are not friends. But there is a dimension of friendship that can go up or down. And similar experience with students and colleagues that some quality or dimension comes in and it has its own elusiveness and fragilities. And, and so these thoughts have been arising in witnessing your relationship. And I’d love to see you reflect on that.
A.H. Almaas: It’s a natural thing for that to happen, that there is undulation friendship, marriages, all that that happen flow, but when the relationship but the question is, what is the actual relationship, not what the people feel about it? Not what the two people think about it, but what is it really when you remove the beliefs and the ideas and the history, what’s left, you see, and that sometimes we’re aware of it, and we that can occur, but sometimes we get busy or we get distracted by other things, we will get involved in anything. So that precedes you see, I want to seed a different kind of relationship can that dominate. But the thing about you know, all kind of relationship any kind, you know, whether parent, parent and child, friends, collegial student teacher is what is the true relationship? Because most people are what they know about the relationship is what they think of each other what they feel about each other, not the ontological presence of the relationship itself. What is its reality? And we are saying it is possible to find out and to know it.
Lissa Deniston
Hi, thanks so much for all of this Hamid we I’m Lissa Deniston. And we listened to the conscious love program that you did for sounds true, which was really helpful for us because we met about two years ago, and I’ve had a very unusual relationship. Not a romantic relationship, but a very strange relationship that it was it was helpful for us to hear that program. Yeah, one of the questions that we’ve had, and this has been one of the real struggles is that we’ve had a lot of what I now know is called tele somatic events, where, for example, Dennis is in Peru doing an Ayahuasca medicine journey, and I’m throwing up in California having no idea what’s going on with me, or I’m breaking up with my boyfriend and feeling devastated and he’s having chest pain. When we don’t know, you know, intellectually, these things are going on. And it’s been quite terrifying. When you were talking about the autonomous being, and that, you know, that feeling of like, we don’t want this, I don’t want to be yoked to this person who’s having making choices, and then I’m having consequences of them. And so it’s created a lot of challenges. I just wondered if you could speak to that.
Rick Archer: I’m gonna be interviewing this lady in a while that had this profound, rather spontaneous awakening. And her cousin also had a very profound spontaneous awakening at the same time. And she had he was in a social and relationship context in which she was able to get understanding and support and her cousin ended up in a mental hospital but It’s interesting that the two of them had this sort of soul connection or something that caused them both to pop at the same time. So I mean, you guys have this soul connection? Maybe you do. You know, maybe there are people who just have this bond that they’re not aware of what the roots of it may be, but they go through this kind of spiritual emergency. Yeah.
Lissa Deniston: Shortly after we met, Dennis had a spiritual emergency. And we worked through all of that and had to get a lot of support and had no idea what was happening. So well,
Karen Johnson: it would take a lot my I feel, I’d be a little bit ahead of myself to say, Oh, I know what that is. But I would say obviously, there’s a important connection. And it’s important to inquire into that meaning to stay abreast of what’s happening to actually see what it is that’s occurring, and see what you can understand about it. And how much of it is the connection? How much of it could be other things simultaneously? I mean, there needs to be patterns, that if you’re really going to be scientific about it, to really not just jump to a conclusion, but to actually see what kind of patterns they are, how they emerge? In what ways do they emerge and try to understand it, and get in touch with well, what is going on? Actually, when we’re together? What do we experience of one another what is happening in terms of our consciousness right now, and see if you can find those elements.
A.H. Almaas: Yeah, relationship, we need to remember being one is just one kind, rare kind, most relationship or two people interact, that’s what really we should meet. And we need to value that we talk this whole interview is we’re making that important. It that relationship have their own value, their own truth, their own value, they have their creative value, but also value for them or work for the development for development of both any kind of relationship, collegial friendship, Marathon, but just a layer two people or a group people together, they can have relationship, as we know, when there is a group involved in a project, like in meditation or doing something together that creates a field that’s powerful that everybody benefits from and become involved. And that’s the kind of relationship like everybody here.
Rick Archer: Well, yeah, conference like this creates a whole it’s more than the sum of its parts and energy gets generated. There’s a saying and towards the end of the tent, modulo the Rig Veda, there’s a saying that an assembly is significant in unity. And there’s a whole beautiful thing. But it has to do with, you know, kind of a group of the Enlightenment coming together and something very profound getting generated from that that wouldn’t be generated where they just be individually scattered around. So I think we’re just about out of time. Any final thoughts before we wrap it up? Thank you. And welcome.
A.H. Almaas: Nice talking with you. We have people this time, we have some people get people through our questions. It’s nice to have everybody here. Thank you.
Rick Archer: And I just want to say I’m always interested in the practical thing, you know, so I mean, people are going to be listening to this in South Africa and Thailand and Austria all over the place. And so should they basically, just if they’re interested in read your books, or is there anything more they can do without having to travel to Berkeley, or what?
Karen Johnson: Well, we just opened a program of diamond approach online, and we’re going to start putting things through that. So because we noticed there’s lots of different disparate things about the diamond approach on the net, and we’re trying to bring things together and really put out the trunk of the tree instead of having all these leaves everywhere. So we’re putting out the teachings in a way that through the the books are good
A.H. Almaas: book we wrote, we write together the power of Divine arrows is a lot about relationship. Different car related,
Rick Archer: hopefully talked about enough of that have a whole lot of notes that we didn’t, yeah,
A.H. Almaas: and people can can learn a lot by reading them.
Karen Johnson: What is the erotic nature of relationships of all kinds, not just intimate.
Rick Archer: So I’ll link to that from the BatGap website. And is there anything else? What’s your main website? You’d want people listening to know about? That diamond at?
A.H. Almaas: The present time? Ridhwan.org
Rick Archer: All right. wn
A.H. Almaas: Yeah.
Karen Johnson: And we’re in the process of rebuilding it at the moment and we’re gonna have diamond approach online, go through it, but that would be a good place to start.
Rick Archer: Okay. won’t be hard to get in touch. A few people want to do it. Yeah, they can figure it don’t need to do it perfectly. We do New Zealand, Australia, all over the world. There’s groups everywhere. Okay, that’s good for people to hear. Because otherwise they might just give up or lose interest or somebody that they thought they had to travel. You got to Berkeley.
Karen Johnson: You’re welcome to we’re popping up everywhere like Starbucks
A.H. Almaas: is it possible to see more view of your teaching life teachings? Often, we do live teaching, sometimes we have lots of teachers too. And we have many teachers, and
Karen Johnson: there’s different groups, there’s different events,
A.H. Almaas: a teaching school. So you have many teachers and the two of us teach some groups together. And some time we do public teaching. I think
Karen Johnson: there’s a new group developing right now there’s some flyers upstairs teacher sent along, you’re gonna open that you can take that information and
A.H. Almaas: yeah, I’d be involved in that teaching.
Rick Archer: Unlike anything else, I suppose the more you get into it, the more you can sort of interface and you know,
Karen Johnson: yeah, there’s no way to inform up the whole of it in one hour, right?
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Karen Johnson: sure.
Rick Archer: Just a taste 50 year in black.
A.H. Almaas: We haven’t discussed yet. The different realization, different from non dual how relationship happens? Yeah, so hold on. Yeah, all Felisa. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Okay, well, thank you all for coming.
