A. H. Almaas Book Talk Explores How Totality Can Be Experienced

In this powerful talk recorded at the Ridhwan Center in Berkeley, CA, A. H. Almaas explores themes from his groundbreaking book Runaway Realization, introducing a radically inclusive perspective he calls the "View of Totality". With clarity and depth, Almaas invites us into a vision of spiritual realization, not as a final attainment, but as a living, open-ended revelation—where reality is ever-unfolding and freedom means being liberated from all fixed views. This talk is a rich opportunity to glimpse what it truly means to live a life of ceaseless discovery. Scroll down to view video.

Summary 

In this illuminating book talk, A. H. Almaas offers fresh insights into his 17th book, Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery. This talk builds upon themes introduced in his presentation at the Science and Nonduality Conference but delves further into the nuances of realization and the mysterious nature of reality itself. 

Realization Not a Final State 

Almaas discusses how realization is not a final state but a dynamic, ongoing unfolding. At the heart of this teaching is the View of Totality—a perspective that embraces the vast multiplicity of ways that reality can appear. Rather than privileging one path or view, Almaas explains that totality can manifest as the soul experiencing itself as the container of all our inner events or as the totality of the universe itself, timeless awareness in which all phenomena arise. 

Emptiness Not Separate from Presence 

He further explores the subtle nature of emptiness as understood in the Prasangika Madhyamaka tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. Here, emptiness is not the absence of being but an indeterminate field inseparable from presence itself, the radiant fullness of self-knowing awareness.  

Dynamism of Reality 

Almaas emphasizes that reality is far more indeterminate and mysterious than anything we can conceive of. No single view, whether dual, nondual, unilocal, or something else entirely, can capture the dynamism of reality. Freedom is the freedom of reality to reveal its dynamism, to express itself as form, as formlessness, as both, or as neither. 

Freedom Vehicle Illuminates Inherent Freedom 

This view aligns with what Almaas calls the Freedom Vehicle—a new diamond vehicle that arises in the descent aspect of realization. It illuminates the soul’s inherent freedom and its inseparable relationship to a life of service. This freedom is not about doing as one pleases but about participating in reality’s unfolding from a place of clarity, responsiveness, and alignment with our deepest truth. 

Through Runaway Realization, Almaas invites us into a living teaching—one in which realization of the self continually moves, shifts, and expands, carrying us into ever-deepening intimacy with the mystery of Being.