Deep Transformation Podcast: Self - Society - Spirit

10/16/2025

“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.”

🎙️ The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum SJ

📺 The FULL video of this conversation is now available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0B2IRHe4GY

Some of the topics discussed in this episode:
• What is spiritual discernment?
• Getting back to direct experience of God; becoming an instrument of the divine
• The rise of secularism; also burgeoning fundamentalism
• Pope Francis’ call for action on behalf of the earth
• In the U.S. today, what shape should religiously motivated resistance take?
• The Church’s relationship with A.I.

“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 ...

10/14/2025

Fr. David McCallum, SJ: "...in that encyclical, Francis mentions the misinterpretations of Genesis where God offers creation to humanity and says, 'Have dominion over it.' And Francis, having been informed, I think very well, by various indigenous thinkers over the years, knew that it was necessary to challenge this separateness and this lordship that is a kind of domination of the earth..."

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🎙️ The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 2 of 2)

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/spiritual-discernment-attuning-to-inner-guidance-fr-david-mccallum-sj-2/

Visit the episode page for a summary, timestamps, and links to resources mentioned.

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

I was very grateful that in that encyclical, Francis mentions the misinterpretations of Genesis where God offers creation to humanity and says, "Have dominion over it." And Francis having been informed, I think, very well by various indigenous thinkers over the years, knew that it was necessary to challenge this separateness and this lordship that is a kind of domination of the earth and rather to have that kind of Franciscan sense of no, we are interdependent. We are completely related in a very profound way, and often hidden ways, to this natural world of which we are an extension. And yeah, he challenged that kind of old and very powerful mindset that somehow the earth is an object to be exploited, but rather really sees it as a sacred entity of which we are a part.

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10/13/2025

Fr. David McCallum, SJ: "...how have I been, in a sense, making myself available to be used by the divine for a purpose that feels really deeply consoling to me, energizing, life-giving, and that has been truly of service to others?"

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🎙️ The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 2 of 2)

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/spiritual-discernment-attuning-to-inner-guidance-fr-david-mccallum-sj-2/

Visit the episode page for a summary, timestamps, and links to resources mentioned.

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

You know, Ignatius was very keen on direct experience. In fact, Pope Francis used to say that reality is more important than ideas. Now, of course, academics were not so fond of that way of thinking. But his point was we need to get back to the direct experience. It's very easy to kind of abstract for a lot of us and to step away. And there's a power in that process. But what he wanted to bring us back to was the direct experience where we're not fleeing from the challenges and suffering and the gaps in the world, but we're really encountering them and seeing their opportunities to be of service and to make change. So in Ignatian prayer, it's very much about experience. It's where has God been through my day? How am I serving as an instrument? You know, in a Franciscan sense, how have I been, in a sense, making myself available to be used by the divine for a purpose that feels really deeply consoling to me, energizing, life-giving, and that has been truly of service to others?

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10/12/2025

“Disasters and oppression today are by-products of a spiritual crisis… We don’t see the unity of all.”

🎙️ Episode 203
The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 2 of 2)

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/spiritual-discernment-attuning-to-inner-guidance-fr-david-mccallum-sj-2

In this rich conversation, Father David McCallum, SJ, explores the practice of discernment—an effective and invaluable tool for a life filled with mission, purpose, and service, especially important now in this era of changes and choices to be made. Discernment 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. Father David describes the “journey worth making”—surrendering, opening, accepting divine grace and love—enlightens us as to the far-sighted reforms proposed by the late Pope Francis, and delves into the Church’s relationship with A.I. A delightful, profound, mind-broadening conversation. Recorded July 10, 2025.

10/11/2025

Fr. David McCallum, SJ: "...while many people reduce discernment to decision-making, I would say it's a habitus in that kind of classic sense. It's a way of being. It's a way of knowing and making sense of reality, bringing this deeper subjectivity into play."

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🎙️ The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 1 of 2)

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/spiritual-discernment-attuning-to-inner-guidance-fr-david-mccallum-sj-1/

Visit the episode page for a summary, timestamps, and links to resources mentioned.

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

But, I would say—while many people reduce discernment to decision-making, I would say it's a habitus in that kind of classic sense. It's a way of being. It's a way of knowing and making sense of reality, bringing this deeper subjectivity into play. I think, Roger, you know, your karmic yoga basically is really a kind of a practice of this in many ways. And then, it's also a question of action, doing, and relating. Because when we're in discernment in our relationships, we're paying attention to, well, how is the spirit moving amongst us, between us, right? What are we sensing right now, which is giving us consolation? Ignatius discerned the difference between what he called consolation, which is experiences of faith, hope, love, the energy to do good; or desolation, you know, which is a decline, and a kind of loss of faith, hope and love...

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10/07/2025

Fr. David McCallum, SJ: "...There was often not just an experience of God, but also a sense of mission that grew out of that."

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🎙️ The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 1 of 2)

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/spiritual-discernment-attuning-to-inner-guidance-fr-david-mccallum-sj-1/

Visit the episode page for a summary, timestamps, and links to resources mentioned.

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

Most of us have only had experiences of the exoteric religion, you know, the institutional religion, but often transmitted through rituals and practices and community, but often lacking the substance of a deep spirituality. So, yes, we have the comfort of repeated rituals and prayers and things like that, but often, you know, in a sense disconnected from this deeper wellspring. I think that one of the benefits of the many spiritualities that are within the Christian sort of sphere is that they're often originated in founding figures who had a very particular experience of God at a particular time, and they were able to in some ways give expression to that in a way that people felt it spoke to them. Ignatius was one of those people, Teresa of Ávila, Francis of Assisi, Dominic, you know, these founders and foundresses of often religious congregations. There was often not just an experience of God, but also a sense of mission that grew out of that.

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10/03/2025

“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.”

🎙️ Episode 202
The Way of Spiritual Discernment: Attuning to Inner Guidance to Serve Oneself & the World with Fr. David McCallum, SJ (Part 1 of 2)

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/spiritual-discernment-attuning-to-inner-guidance-fr-david-mccallum-sj-1/

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.

10/02/2025

“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.”

🎙️ A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness

📺 The FULL video of this conversation is now available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvJuGsUpiUQ

Some of the topics discussed in this episode:
• Where does mind come from?
• To know implies a concept: the concept of being
• Mind is not the obstacle—the obstacle is reification
• Getting to an awareness that is free of knowing: pure awareness
• Knowing and being are two sides of the same thing

A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali): ““Mind is not an obstacle. Not an enemy. The obstacle is the reified representation of mind. If we take the knowledge of that mind...

10/01/2025

A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali): "...There are two sides of the same thing. It can be pure being, completely being the fullness of reality and richness, or it could be empty, transparent, just perception."

🎙️ A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13, Part 2 of 2) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness

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📺 Watch the FULL video conversations or 🎧 listen to the FULL audio only interviews of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series:

https://deeptransformation.io/a-h-almaas-wisdom-series/

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

It's just clarity with no fullness. Presence has fullness, you see. Awareness, you can't say it has fullness. It's very ephemeral, very light, very—completely non-substantial. It is important to realize that both are possible. Sometimes people were looking for one, but not the other. But, there's no reason to choose. No reason to accept one and reject the other. There are two sides of the same thing. It can be pure being, completely being the fullness of reality and richness, or it could be empty, transparent, just perception.

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09/30/2025

A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali): "...The mind as an obstacle is the reifying mind that uses concept. But, you see, for reification to happen, there has to be concept. In pure awareness, there's no concept. So, there's no possibility of reification."

🎙️ A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13, Part 2 of 2) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness

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📺 Watch the FULL video conversations or 🎧 listen to the FULL audio only interviews of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series:

https://deeptransformation.io/a-h-almaas-wisdom-series/

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

The mind as an obstacle is the reifying mind that uses concept. But, you see, for reification to happen, there has to be concept. In pure awareness, there's no concept. So, there's no possibility of reification. That's why it is feeling if greater freedom because pure being, although it is a freedom, and it is truth, and reality, it has the possibility for reification because there is knowing. The knowing itself is not the problem, but there's a nascent possibility of a thing developing into reification. In pure awareness, there's no concept. So, there's nothing to reify, nothing to become basic or ordinary and reify. None. There's no knowing.

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09/26/2025

“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.”

🎙️ Episode 201
A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13, Part 2 of 2) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness

🎧 https://deeptransformation.io/a-h-almaas-wisdom-series-13-2-deep-knowing-pure-being-pure-awareness/

Topics:
• How does Hameed remember the state of pure awareness when there’s no knowing in that state?
• Most spiritual teachings have pure awareness and pure presence as inseparable, but in this teaching they can be distinguished
• The experience of pure awareness: transparency, translucence, freedom
• The world is not an illusion; it is the face of God
• The logos is what makes things manifest
• Connecting the dimensions of pure being and pure awareness: mind is not an obstacle
• Gurdjieff’s “stupid saints”
• Mind is not the enemy; it’s the reification of knowing that is the obstacle
• Pure awareness is more fundamental than pure being because there are no concepts; freedom is more palpable in pure awareness
• Hameed’s multiple kinds of freedom; freedom independent from the ground of being
• What does it feel like to realize there is no ground?
• Transcending conceptual dichotomies: in spiritual liberation dichotomies can be stumbling blocks, like being vs nonbeing
• Will science start to accept the ground of being?
• Is math, the Euclidean theorem, a property of reality?
• Consciousness and quantum theory
• Knowing is fundamental to the universe; it’s inherent to our true nature
• There’s no reason to have to choose between knowing and being, they’re two sides of the same thing

09/25/2025

A. H. Almaas (Hameed Ali): "...All spiritual teachings, all practices is to go beyond the reification. That's the point—to go beyond the reified experience to immediate experience, basically."

🎙️ A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 13, Part 1) – Our Deepest Knowing: Awakening to Pure Being and Pure Awareness

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📺 Watch the FULL video conversations or 🎧 listen to the FULL audio only interviews of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series:

https://deeptransformation.io/a-h-almaas-wisdom-series/

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❤️ Our podcast is a labor of love funded solely by co-hosts Roger and John. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us keep these meaningful conversations alive by supporting us through: https://deeptransformation.io/donate/

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Trailer Transcript:

All spiritual teachings, all practices is to go beyond the reification. That's the point—to go beyond the reified experience to immediate experience, basically. So, the methodology that I developed which deploys this understanding of concept and reification and all that, is to look at the reified concept and understand them and see where they come from. In that way, they are penetrated, and then they dissolve. They reveal themselves as just concepts, then becomes nothing there for a while before a quality of being arises.

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