Emptying the Heart of All that Obscures the Inner Beloved

Ep. 226 (Part 1 of 2) | 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.

“Love is a much bigger force for a human being than any other thing.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

1. Introducing the 2nd dialogue in the Path of Love Series, focusing on A. H. Almaas’ latest book: The Inner Beloved (00:40)
2. Most of this path towards discovering our inner nature has to do with emptying the heart (02:48)
3. There are other paths of awakening, but for Hameed the path of love took center stage (06:53)
4. Getting a taste of the inner beloved early on can become the seed of our inner longing (08:41)
5. Can we have a second person relationship with the inner beloved? (09:55)
6. The path of love has to do with yearning and with feeling “nearer”—some traditions even have words for different degrees of nearness (11:16)
7. Even after realizing absolute truth, the heart continues to need emptying; we haven’t yet recognized the inner beloved (14:47)
8. The path of love isn’t for everybody; for Buddhists, it’s the path of the mind (18:04)
9. In Hameed’s book, there are powerful exercises to remove blocks to perceiving the inner beloved—these worked a treat for Roger (19:07)
10. The heart is a subtle organ of the soul with its own dynamic: yearning, love, intensity & passion that penetrate the barriers and dissolve them (22:34)
11. The suffering people go through is inevitable without pursuing the spiritual path to its final stages (25:21)
12. Great fears come up: of losing our love for our loved ones & our love for the world (29:26)
13. We encounter our deep woundings on the path of love; it’s not an easy path (33:00)
14. The path of love is not methodical or intentional—it just happens (33:46)
15. The beloved throws itself nearer, and in that nearness you encounter all your obstacles (34:41)
16. Our hearts are full of garbage… love is sorely needed these days on earth (35:10)

For fans of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, the Wisdom Series, based on Hameed’s book The Inner Journey Home, will be continued later in the spring.

Resources & References – Part 1

1. A. H. Almaas, The Inner Beloved: The Heart’s Journey to Divine Unity
2. A. H. Almaas, Love Unveiled: Discovering the Essence of the Awakened Heart
3. A. H. Almaas, Nondual Love: Awakening to the Loving Nature of Reality
4. Rumi, The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
5. Abraham Maslow wrote about meta-motives and meta-pathologies in Toward a Psychology of Being and The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
6. Poet Longchenpa only rarely talks about love and beauty, Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind
7. Ramakrishna, Hindu mystic devoted to Kali

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Deep Transformation’s Path of Love Series with A. H. Almaas

Deep Transformation’s Path of Love Series with A. H. Almaas begins with an overview of Hameed Ali’s Love Trilogy — Love Unveiled, Nondual Love, and The Inner Beloved — to orient us on the spiritual path of love unique to Hameed Ali and the Diamond Approach, then delves into the profound and deeply touching topics Hameed addresses in his most recent book, The Inner Beloved, published in February 2026. Listeners may want to get a copy of this book, to study and follow along on this extraordinary path of awakening. Also, if you are interested in taking a course on The Inner Beloved in the fall of 2026, you can register your interest here: https://da.pages.ontraport.net/inner-beloved-interest.

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Special Diamond Approach Course Discount for Deep Transformation Listeners

If you are interested in taking a course offered by Diamond Approach Online, Hameed’s team at the Ridhwan School have offered a special 20% discount for Deep Transformation listeners. You can access the Course Catalog here: https://online.diamondapproach.org/catalog/. And enter the code DTP20 to receive your discount when you sign up.

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Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) was born in Kuwait in 1944. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the U.S. 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 to inquire into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature rather than the physical nature of the universe. He left the academic world to pursue an in-depth journey of inner discovery, applying his scientific precision and discipline to personal, experiential research. This included study with different teachers in different modalities, extensive reading, and continuous study of his own consciousness in an effort to understand the essential nature of human experience and reality in general.

Hameed’s process of exploration led to the creation of the Ridhwan School and, with his colleague Karen Johnson, resulted in the founding and unfoldment of the Diamond Approach. He is the author of 20 books, including Nondual Love: Awakening to the Loving Nature of Reality, Love Unveiled: Discovering the Essence of the Awakened Heart, Keys to the Enneagram: How to Unlock the Highest Potential of Every Personality Type, The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence, and more.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell