This newest book by Diamond Approach Founder, A. H. Almaas is an exploration of the spiritual journey as a path of love, where the heart’s discontent becomes the doorway to ultimate fulfillment.
Although the heart seeks fulfillment in people, possessions, and experiences, no external love can truly satisfy our deepest longing. Our discontent is an opportunity, a sacred invitation to turn inward. True fulfillment arises only when we empty our hearts to make space for the formless and intangible inner Beloved that is our true nature.
In The Inner Beloved, A. H. Almaas guides us on a transformative journey of the heart. With poetic insight, personal reflection, and practical exercises, he shows how the search for love leads us through emptiness and into a luminous darkness—a place where the mind is confounded, but the heart awakens to a passionate love for the unknown. As we surrender to this mystery and discover the unity of lover and Beloved, we feel a complete intimacy with the fundamental truth of reality, allowing us to rest in the deepest fulfillment possible.
"Be prepared for a thrilling and very deep dive into the heart of Divine Love. A. H. Almaas serves as a masterful guide into the very heart of existence through the call of the inner Beloved.”
—Adyashanti, author of Emptiness Dancing.
“As I take the time to savor this book's subtlety and abundant gems of insight for my own inner work, I am once again reminded that my wise friend A. H. Almaas knows the terrain of the heart like the back of his hand. He brings his renowned skills in inquiry fully to bear on that perennially challenging, mystical assertion that the fullness of love can never be finally attained or borne within finite form—it is always and only a straight shot into the infinite. Once properly located, however, that fullness gently returns to us as a newfound spaciousness and equanimity, illuminating and quietly suffusing our all too fervent human relational strivings.”
—Cynthia Bourgeault, author of The Heart of Centering Prayer and Eye of the Heart
“This exquisite book guides us—clearly, systematically, beautifully—along the path of love all the way to its ultimate source. It calls us from our usual, fickle, fragmented passions through multiple stages of healing and opening to the boundless love-bliss that has always been our deepest desire, our deepest nature, and the source of all. What a gift!”
—Roger Walsh, MD, PhD, professor at University of California and cohost of the “A. H. Almaas Wisdom Dialogues” on the Deep Transformation Podcast
“Almaas has given us a luminous guide to the devotional path of the heart. Rooted in his own lived realization and enriched by poetry and story, this book speaks directly to our innermost longing. Reading The Inner Beloved is like being invited into a private conversation between the soul and its deepest yearning. Almaas unfolds the path of love with honesty, precision, and tenderness, showing both its heartbreak and its ecstasy. In doing so, he offers not just teachings but an embodied transmission of the sacred eros that calls us Home. Almaas leads us from the discontent of ordinary love into the luminous mystery of the one Beloved who is the source of All. A profound contribution to contemporary spirituality.”
—Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, PhD, Dean of Integral Education, California Institute for Human Science
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The Discontent of the Heart
Chapter 2 The Divided Heart
Chapter 3 Names of the Beloved
Chapter 4 Fidelity of the Heart
Chapter 5 Beyond Divinity
Chapter 6 Poverty of the Heart
Chapter 7 Yearning for the Beloved
Chapter 8 The Primal Cavity
Chapter 9 The Death Wish
Chapter 10 Stupa Love
Chapter 11 Luminous Night
Chapter 12 Secrets of the Heart
Chapter 13 The Beloved
Chapter 14 Bedazzlement
Chapter 15 Divine Darkness
Chapter 16 Wholeness
Chapter 17 Unity of Love
Chapter 18 Intimacy
A. H. Almaas
"This is the third and final volume of this series on love. In
the first two volumes I discussed how spiritual love manifests
in the everyday personal sphere, and then how it can take us
into the boundless dimension of Divine Love. Those books paved
the way for this one and prepared the ground for its theme—the
central journey of the heart. This journey is not simply about
love; it is actually more about the way of the heart, the path that
leads to the realization of the mystery that many teachings regard
as the ultimate nature of everything and the source of all that we
experience."
Previous books in the Journey of Spiritual Love series:
Love Unveiled: Discovering the Essence of the Awakened Heart
Nondual Love: Awakening to the Loving Nature of Reality