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Podcast Episodes
A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 14, Part 1) – Waking Up to Pure Awareness: Transcending Your Mind
“To be in the nonconceptual state, i.e. in sitting meditation, is half of it, but to actualize it is the other half.”
Ep. 204 (Part 1 of 2) | In the fourteenth dialogue in the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali explores the nonconceptual nature of the dimension of pure awareness, guiding us into the realm that lies beyond conceptual dichotomies such as being/nonbeing, being/doing, duality/nonduality, good/bad, and meaningful/meaningless. Beyond knowing, this dimension exposes and challenges conceptual polarities, and when we arrive at this level of realization we are able to trust letting go of knowingness and wake up to pure awareness. People fear annihilation at the prospect of going beyond concepts, Hameed explains, and it does lead to a death: the death of mind, the death of the doer. But even here beyond knowing, Hameed continues, the nonconceptual always operates from compassion and love.
How do we develop a continuity of nonconceptual awareness? Roger and John wonder. One way is when knowing is integrated into being, Hameed answers. Then everything just happens; the doing is funneled through the individual. And there is another way, through developing the “pearl beyond price,” the individual, Hameed adds, but this way is rare. As co-host Roger Walsh says, this is an especially nourishing, stimulating, and intriguing discussion, with Hameed doing a beautiful job of relating how our concepts form the basis of our existence and what it means to transcend them, let go of our mind, deconstruct our perception of ourselves as the “doer,” and wake up to pure awareness. Recorded August 14, 2025.
(Part 2) The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ
“Disasters and oppression today are by-products of a spiritual crisis… We don’t see the unity of all.”
Ep. 203 (Part 2 of 2) | In this rich, delightful, and profound conversation, Integral Theory informed Father David McCallum, SJ, currently serving the Catholic Church as executive director of the Program for Discerning Leadership, leads us into a world filled with mission, purpose, and service, foundational to which is the practice of discernment. David describes discernment as the capacity to exercise good judgment, hold complexity, and wait for clarity. This is not only a practice for individuals, he explains, but also a communal one, providing a way for communities to discern and design together the future they want to create—through listening, dialoguing, participating. Discernment is a way of knowing and making sense of reality, David continues, and especially important now in this era of changes and choices to be made.
David enlightens us as to the beautiful and far-sighted reforms proposed by the late Pope Francis, who was all for changing the balance of authority and participation in the Church; for people to have direct experience of Presence and the capacity to practice discernment; who also advocated for taking swift action on behalf of our planet, even calling out the part in the Bible that says man has dominion over the Earth. From David’s description of “the journey worth making”—surrendering, opening, accepting divine grace and love—to using Otto Scharmer’s U Process to help find the courage to change and simplify our lives for the benefit of all, to the Church’s relationship with A.I., David provides us with an extraordinarily mind-broadening, motivating, and spiritually fulfilling perspective. Recorded July 10, 2025.
The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 1)
“No secular, material, and empirical path is going to satisfy the longing we have for a transcendent purpose, for meaning, for existential belonging, in the ways that a healthy spirituality can.”
Ep. 202 (Part 1 of 2) | In this rich, delightful, and profound conversation, integralist Father David McCallum, SJ, currently serving the Vatican as executive director of the Program for Discerning Leadership, leads us into a world filled with mission, purpose, and service, foundational to which is the practice of discernment. David describes discernment as the capacity to exercise good judgment, hold complexity, and wait for clarity. This is not only a practice for individuals, he explains, but also a communal one, providing a way for communities to discern and design together the future they want to create—through listening, dialoguing, participating. Discernment is a way of knowing and making sense of reality, David continues, and especially important now in this era of changes and choices to be made.
David enlightens us as to the beautiful and far-sighted reforms proposed by the late Pope Francis, who was all for changing the balance of authority and participation in the Church; for people to have direct experience of Presence and the capacity to practice discernment; who also advocated for taking swift action on behalf of our planet, even calling out the part in the Bible that says man has dominion over the Earth. From David’s description of “the journey worth making”—surrendering, opening, accepting divine grace and love—to using Otto Scharmer’s U Process to help find the courage to change and simplify our lives for the benefit of all, to the Church’s relationship with A.I., David provides us with an extraordinarily mind-broadening, motivating, and spiritually fulfilling perspective. Recorded July 10, 2025.
A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13, Part 2) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness
“Mind is not an obstacle. Not an enemy. The obstacle is the reified representation of mind. If we take the knowledge of that mind to be reality, that is the obstacle.”
Ep. 201 (Part 2 of 2) | In the thirteenth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali delves into the subject of knowing, or basic knowledge, at the deepest level of awareness. Different from ordinary knowledge, basic knowledge is inherent and immediate, an important feature of reality. You can know Being by being Being, he says; know consciousness by being consciousness, know peace by being peace. Being and knowing are the same thing, he explains, two sides of a coin. Some of what Hameed shares here is unique to his Diamond Approach teaching, and not found in other spiritual teachings, such as what he imparts about the origin of mind and the distinction he makes between pure being and pure awareness.
Hameed explains that we need our conceptual mind (to do our taxes, he laughs), but that reification—treating concepts as if they were real things—creates obstacles and alienates us from our true nature. The aim of all spiritual practice is to go beyond reification to immediate experience, he says. When Hameed describes the difference between pure presence and pure awareness, John wonders, how does Hameed remember the state of pure awareness when there’s no knowing in that state? And what does it feel like to experience no ground of being? Hameed answers in his usual enlightening, gently humorous way, leaving listeners in a state of open-minded wonder. Vastly illuminating, this conversation goes directly to the heart of being and the heart of knowing at the very foundation of true nature. Recorded July 17, 2025.
A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13, Part 1) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness
“Being is the origin of mind.”
Ep. 200 (Part 1 of 2) | In the thirteenth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali delves into the subject of knowing, or basic knowledge, at the deepest level of awareness. Different from ordinary knowledge, basic knowledge is inherent and immediate, an important feature of reality. You can know Being by being Being, he says; know consciousness by being consciousness, know peace by being peace. Being and knowing are the same thing, he explains, two sides of a coin. Some of what Hameed shares here is unique to his Diamond Approach teaching, and not found in other spiritual teachings, such as what he imparts about the origin of mind and the distinction he makes between pure being and pure awareness.
Hameed explains that we need our conceptual mind (to do our taxes, he laughs), but that reification—treating concepts as if they were real things—creates obstacles and alienates us from our true nature. The aim of all spiritual practice is to go beyond reification to immediate experience, he says. When Hameed describes the difference between pure presence and pure awareness, John wonders, how does Hameed remember the state of pure awareness when there’s no knowing in that state? And what does it feel like to experience no ground of being? Hameed answers in his usual enlightening, gently humorous way, leaving listeners in a state of open-minded wonder. Vastly illuminating, this conversation goes directly to the heart of being and the heart of knowing at the very foundation of true nature. Recorded July 17, 2025.