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Spiritual Path
At Our Essence, We Are Love: Becoming Intimate with Everything
“Regardless of what we think and feel, at our essence we are love.”
Ep. 231 (Part 2 of 2) | In Part 2 of Deep Transformation’s third dialogue in the Path of Love Series with A. H. Almaas, Hameed Ali relates what happens on the path of return, after we have experienced dissolving into the radiance of the absolute. In following the path of heart (as opposed to the path of mind), we discover that in addition to pure emptiness, the absolute has (in its beingness aspect) a quality of consciousness that is pure intimacy. “The beloved is intimate with all things in the universe: intimate with people, with the rocks, with the stars… because its nature pervades everything.” Upon returning to the world, we find the universe has become the radiance of the beloved and ordinary life becomes full of love. That said, we may experience a great fear of losing our awakened realization, Hameed adds, which can further stir up old woundings which still need to be faced.
Back in the world, as the embodied beloved, do you feel compassion for other people’s suffering? co-host John Dupuy wonders. The extent of the compassion is almost unimaginable, Hameed answers. There is vast empathy for all the suffering in the world, and especially for the deep suffering underlying it all that is caused by people not knowing their inner truth. It is by giving the beloved the opportunity to appear and know itself as we live our lives that we love and serve the inner beloved, Hameed continues. He explains that awareness is the beloved witnessing its creation, and that the emptiness aspect of the beloved, emphasized in Buddhism and on the path of mind, brings a searing clarity to our experience. A beautiful conversation, in which co-host Roger Walsh remarks that the presence of the inner beloved seems to be increasingly reflected in these dialogues as they unfold. Perhaps you will feel it too. Recorded January 29, 2026.
Read MoreDissolving into Bliss: The Ecstasy of Ego Death
“It is inherent to the human being… the movement to dissolve into bliss, into the beloved.”
The third dialogue in the Path of Love Series with A. H. Almaas opens with co-host Roger Walsh commenting that in reading Hameed’s most recent book, The Inner Beloved, he is struck by how different the Diamond Approach’s path of love is from those in other traditions. Hameed explains that, indeed, his path is different in that it addresses the sequence of events on the path of love systematically, using contemporary psychological language to describe the difficulties and barriers that arise, and further, that he includes not only obstacles that come up in the mind (concepts and beliefs), but emotional pain and woundings, abandonments and betrayals, which is something other traditions don’t often talk about. Why are our hearts not open? Because opening to such painful emotions is scary; our fear blocks us from opening to the vastness of divine love. The secret to moving forward on the path of love, Hameed says, is to love more intensely, more deeply. Love itself is the fuel that gets us through the obstacles to union with the inner beloved.
Hameed speaks of the “death wish” that happens along the path, referring to our desire to dissolve completely into the beloved. “The deep heart loves the prospect of melting away and being nothing, being annihilated, completely absorbed into the beloved,” he explains. The death wish is a common reference in other paths of love, too—the Buddha calls this annihilation of self “emptiness”—and interestingly, Freud recognized it as a universal human characteristic, calling it the nirvana principle. “A deep intuition resides in every human heart,” Hameed continues, “a need for unification with what we love.” This can be small things—chocolate ice cream, our cell phone—which are legitimate objects of love, but in the end, only the inner beloved calls. Once again, Hameed gifts us with an illuminating teaching about the path of love, our desire for nonbeing, the hidden essence of love, and the integration of all we have let go of that happens after we awaken—all coming directly from his own lived experience. Recorded January 29, 2026.
Read MoreThe Awe & Ecstasy of Surrendering to the Inner Beloved
“The beloved is the source of love and what loves everything.”
Ep. 227 (Part 2 of 2) | In Part 2 of Deep Transformation’s second Path of Love Series dialogue, A. H. Almaas explains that the inner beloved is at work in our hearts, pulling us irresistibly nearer as we venture forward on the path of love. The force comes and pulls us, he says, melts us and overwhelms us—sometimes with wounding and sometimes with ecstasy. Our great love for the inner beloved ultimately dissolves our attachments to other, smaller beloveds, which can be big things—family, friends, teachers—or little things: ice cream, cake, our favorite movie star. But our heart isn’t going to be happy until it meets the beloved face to face, Hameed assures us. Then, after emptying our heart, when we finally behold the inner beloved, love becomes the nature of the whole universe. Now our relationships are expressions of the inner beloved, and we find we love everything.
What makes the Diamond Approach’s path of love unique is that it uses love and inquiry combined to penetrate the obstacles that arise along the path. Thus, obstacles are not only burnt away through sheer devotion but also understood and recognized for what they are. Hameed also explains the difference between spiritual poverty of the soul and mystical poverty of the heart, between realization of the absolute via the path of mind versus the path of love, that nonduality is an outer expression of the inner beloved, and describes his own astonishing experience of “thunder and lightning in the heart” on this path. Towards the end of the conversation, Hameed reminds us that when we feel love, that is the beginning. Take the love itself rather than the object of the love, he says, and let it get bigger, let it get deeper, see where it takes you. Recorded January 8, 2026.
Read MoreEmptying the Heart of All that Obscures the Inner Beloved
“Love is a much bigger force for a human being than any other thing.”
In Part 1 of Deep Transformation’s second Path of Love Series dialogue with A. H. Almaas, we learn what a spiritual journey on the path of love entails: particularly, emptying our heart so it can discover the deepest inner truth, the inner beloved. “Most of the path of love has to do with emptying the heart with love and yearning combined to burn through all the idols which stand for the inner beloved,” Hameed says. “The heart knows it loves something deeper than itself… and it pains it that it is separate from it.” There are other paths of awakening, for example, the Buddhist way is largely the path of mind, but for Hameed it was the path of heart that took center stage and revealed its secrets.
The path of love is not methodical or intentional—it just happens, Hameed continues. The beloved works on the heart, works on the soul, and throws itself nearer—and it’s in this nearness that you encounter all the obstacles that keep you from uniting with the beloved. Longtime practitioner, co-host Roger Walsh mentions that the exercises included in Hameed’s latest book, The Inner Beloved, intended to help us remove our blocks to perceiving the inner beloved, have worked a treat for him, opening him up in a new way to where his practice feels more flowing and easeful than before. “Love is sorely needed these days on earth,” Hameed concludes, “as our hearts are full of garbage—wounding, hatred, envy. But there is an organ in the soul—the heart—which has its own dynamic: yearning, love, intensity, and passion that penetrate the barriers and dissolve them.” Another deeply moving and illuminating conversation with co-founder of the Diamond Approach, Hameed Ali. Recorded January 8, 2026.
Read MorePassion, Ecstasy & Challenges on the Path of Love with A. H. Almaas
“The mind asks the questions, the heart finds the answers. The mind gets clear, the heart melts.“
Ep. 222 (Part 2 of 2) | A. H. Almaas’ teachings on spiritual love and the inner beloved are based on his own experience, he explains in Part 2 of the first dialogue in the Path of Love Series. “In this path, experience is almost everything,” he says. Spiritual experience created the Diamond Approach—it isn’t a philosophy. What makes Hameed’s path of love unique and different from other paths of love, like the Sufi and the bhakti paths? First off, it is the methodology: the practice of inquiry. Inquiry combines both mind and heart, Hameed explains. It adds a means of discernment that helps to keep the force of love from going astray on its own; it brings understanding to our experience, and shows us our obstacles. “[This path] has in it the sensibilities of modern mind and modern life and how to live it from the perspective of the heart.”
Another unique feature of A. H. Almaas’ path of love is how we experience drawing closer and closer to the inner beloved. Hameed describes the experience of approaching the inner beloved as a heartrending mixture of “sweetness, passion, ecstasy, drunkenness… many stages of melting, surrender, effulgence, fullness, radiance… all intertwined with yearning and pain and the feeling of being separate” from one’s heart’s true desire. With his customary concise eloquence, Hameed also answers several of the co-hosts’ questions: How does Hameed see contemporary society in the light of this vision of love? Does he think humanity will wake up? What is a fulfilled life? Hameed concludes by telling us that the question this path of love is designed to answer is, how do you live your life while also engaging in the way of the heart? Recorded December 11, 2025.
Entering the Path of Heart: Love and the Jealous Beloved
“The beloved is the deepest nondual truth you can experience.”
Ep. 221 (Part 1 of 2) | Deep Transformation is excited to release the first episode in our new Path of Love Series with A. H. Almaas, in honor and celebration of Hameed Ali’s latest book, The Inner Beloved. The series begins with Hameed sharing his motivation for writing all three of the books in his Love Trilogy (Love Unveiled, Nondual Love, The Inner Beloved), namely, when he realized his prior books had omitted to teach specifically about the role of love on the spiritual path. Love is the energy, the driving force toward union with our inner nature, Hameed explains, and it is love that dissolves the obstacles that remain towards the end of the path. It is the path of heart that gets you all the way.
Hameed orients us with an overview of the Diamond Approach’s experiential path of love, gifting us with some tremendous teachings on love as a prelude to delving deeply into his newest book, The Inner Beloved. When asked, What is the inner beloved? he responds, The beloved is not just love. Love serves the beloved, love is the way to the beloved. The inner beloved is what our deepest heart longs for. The path of the heart is painful at times, he continues, because we feel separate from what we yearn to become one with. At the end of the dialogue, Hameed shares that with his path of love teachings, he wants us to know there is a way to address our longing, our yearning. There is a way for it to complete itself, he assures us. Recorded December 11, 2025.
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