Dedicated to liberation in all its forms, Deconstructing Yourself is passionate about fearlessly investigating, attempting, and questioning all things to do with awakening, meditation, mindfulness, brain hacking, consciousness, neurofeedback, and more.Your host Michael W. Taft interviews some of the most interesting thinkers, authors, and teachers around, as well as other offerings. In this hard-hitting, radical, and fun podcast we look at secular post-, non-, un- Buddhism, Vajrayana, nondual Hindu Tantra, philosophy, the neuroscience of the sense of self, neurofeedback and the consciousness hacking movement, aspects of artificial intelligence, entheogens, and much more.If you’re looking for fresh directions, free from dogma and conformism, think of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast as the radical cafe where you can hear from the most interesting luminaries either from the outside edges of dharma, or a fresh take from more traditional teachers. If you’re interested in more, check out the Deconstructing Yourself website at https://deconstructingyourself.com.
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episode 11: Reality Let Loose, with A. H. Almaas
In this episode, host Michael Taft speaks with spiritual teacher and author Hameed Ali, more often known by his pen name, A. H. Almaas.
Almaas is the creator of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization, which is a contemporary teaching developed within the context of both ancient spiritual teachings and modern depth psychology theories. Almaas has authored eighteen books about spiritual realization, including the Diamond Heart series, The Pearl Beyond Price, The Void, The Unfolding Now, and The Point of Existence.
Michael writes: I met Almaas at his office in Berkeley, where we sat down for a comfortable chat about attachment to the nondual viewpoint, a way of awakening that he calls the “unilocal,” the role of instinct in the spiritual quest, the essential activation of continuous awakening, integrating awakening with the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, and much more. He’s a fascinating guy with a lot to say, and so I’m very happy to present to you the episode that I call “Reality Let Loose.”
Find out more about Almaas at his website.
Show Notes
00:25 - Introduction and summary
02:07 - The Alchemy of Freedom & the many faces of true nature
05:22 - The second turning, nonduality & the third turning, the presence in the Void
08:57 - Exploring the presence: unilocality and the experience of containing everything
14:55 - The fourth turning: singularity & the delight of freedom
19:42 - Immense lightness & the sliding scale of emptiness
23:10 - More on the fourth turning: the view of totality & the pain of going past non-duality
30:50 - Non-duality as part of a sequence of awakenings
33:39 - More fourth turning awakenings: not-anything, non-condition
38:34 - The philosopher's stone & the dynamic, quantum nature of reality
42:30 - Working with true nature & endless awakenings
46:23 - Learning to accept the view of totality & moving beyond belief
51:32 - Aliens, red sulfur, & no-end
58:47 - All spiritual paths are valid
1:00:00 - Almaas' upcoming books: phenomenology of awakening
1:05:33 - Upcoming, continued: instinct & awakening
1:09:19 - Lifeforce, enlightened aliens & the self-revealing nature of true nature
1:12:00 - True nature without consciousness & the mystery at the source of awareness
1:13:34 - Concluding remarks: practice is realization
1:16:16 - Outro
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