Reality’s Infinite Faces and the Intelligence of Being
Transcript, including graphical montage, summary, questions explored, and key takeaways
Summary
This conversation explores the nature of spiritual experience, including why direct realization cannot be reduced to ideas. It also looks at the Diamond Approach, the intelligence of Being, and how different traditions can each reveal reality in valid but distinct ways.
Questions This Interview Explores
- How can spiritual realization be both universal and uniquely experienced?
- Why is fine discrimination so important on the path?
- How do different traditions describe reality without one being simply right and the others wrong?
- What is the relationship between intelligence, emptiness, and the experience of Being?
- How do inquiry, practice, and guidance support ongoing maturation?
A. Hameed Ali was born in Kuwait in 1944. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the USA to study at the University of California in Berkeley. Hameed was working on his Ph.D. in physics when he reached a turning point in his life and destiny that led him more and more into inquiring into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature.
Hameed’s interest in the truth of human nature and the true nature of reality resulted in the creation and unfoldment of the Diamond Approach®:
“The Diamond Approach is a path of wisdom, an approach to the investigation of Reality and work on oneself that leads to human maturity and liberation. Because of our particular vision of Reality it is not completely accurate to think of this approach as spiritual work, for this work does not separate the spiritual from the psychological, neither does it see these two as separate from the physical everyday life and scientific investigation of the content of perception. However, because we live in a society where the prevailing thought is that of the separated facets of Reality, the closest category recognized in this mentality, to our approach, is that of a spiritual path or exploration.”
Some of Hameed’s many books:
- The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life
- The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence
- Brilliancy: The Essence of Intelligence (Diamond Body Series)
- Essence With the Elixir of Enlightenment: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization
Website: ahalmaas.com
Interview recorded 2/22/2014
YouTube Video Chapters:
- 00:00:00 – Introduction of Hamid Ali
- 00:05:52 – The Nature of Spiritual Experience
- 00:10:53 – The Importance of Cultivating Fine Discrimination
- 00:15:01 – The Multifaceted Nature of Spiritual Development
- 00:19:15 – The Manifestation of Being
- 00:24:11 – The Different Paths of Experiencing Being
- 00:28:55 – Differences in Spiritual Teachings and Approaches
- 00:33:05 – Multi-dimensional spirituality and the nature of reality
- 00:37:32 – The Manifestation of Intelligence
- 00:42:04 – The Intelligence of Being
- 00:46:36 – Self-realization and God realization
- 00:51:16 – The Nature of Manifestation
- 00:55:44 – The Concept of Separateness vs Non-Separateness
- 01:00:17 – Experiencing Vastness & Radical Non-Locality
- 01:04:57 – The Maturity of the Individual
- 01:09:17 – The Totality of Being
- 01:13:27 – Moving through Obscuration, Vastness Becomes Liquid
- 01:18:03 – The Manifestation of Being
- 01:22:30 – The Experience of Emptiness
- 01:27:01 – The Taste and Sensation of Music
- 01:30:59 – The Illusory Nature of Individual Consciousness
- 01:35:00 – The Continuation of Practice
- 01:39:08 – The Practice of Inquiry and Spiritual Qualities
- 01:43:37 – Dzogchen and the Self-Destructing Practice
- 01:47:53 – Evolution and Communication Beyond the Body
- 01:52:07 – The Importance of Training and Guidance
- 01:56:05 – Finding Fulfillment in Work
- 02:00:07 – The Incompleteness of Being
- 02:04:23 – The Endless Potential of Knowledge
- 02:08:28 – The Connection of Hearts
- 02:12:29 – Weekly Discussion and Q&A
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
