So when we say Absolute, we mean Being -- Essence with no qualities, before qualities come into Being. Then you know it's the source of everything, because you see everything arising from it.

Because the absolute is not simply nonbeing, we experience it as a field, an expanse, and not simply nonbeing. To understand this we need to make a particular differentiation explicit. We have been using two terms interchangeably, namely absolute and absolute dimension. Strictly speaking, the absolute is the ultimate nature of Reality, and it is beyond dimensions; for dimensions are the experience of manifestation. Yet, we do experience the absolute as a dimension, boundless and infinite, an infinity that contains and holds all manifestation, including the other boundless dimensions. We can say that the absolute is the unmanifest, the ultimate truth and mystery of Being, beyond all dimensions and qualities. But when it begins to manifest appearance, this manifestation appears as if in an expanse, an infinite and boundless expanse, that looks like black space. Manifestation appears always in the context of time and space. It always possesses an expanse in time and space. Therefore, when we witness appearance from this stance of the absolute we see an expanse appearing in a more vast, dark expanse, the absolute. We have the sense of the absolute as an expanse, as a vast infinite black space. The absolute appears in this perception as a boundless dimension that underlies all other dimensions. But in reality the absolute is beyond space and time, for it is beyond manifestation.

We feel unknown and unknowable, and in front of us phenomena appear with functioning. There is awareness of phenomena and functioning, but there is no involvement in it whatsoever. It does not feel like it is someone observing or aware of phenomena. It is as if Reality has two sides. The front is all of existence, the back is the darkness of the absolute. All of appearance, as the divine logos or being, is seen as external to the absolute. There is no one who feels he's doing. The doing is present, without being related to doer. The interesting thing is that there is functioning and perception without a sense of self.

The more we drop our attachments and abandon our inner idols, the more we are filled with grief and loss and sadness. The whole universe will turn into an ocean of tears. As our heart empties itself of its idols, it sacrifices too its yearning and its longing, and even its love. You don’t feel you long any more. You don't even feel that you love any more. There remains only the direct condition of being consumed by an ocean of hot tears. This is some taste of nearness of the Guest, but we experience it for a long time as the grief over the loss of all the things we are shedding and sacrificing. We willingly sacrifice everything, but we cannot help but feel such deep sadness and tears. However, this again is another story the mind tells us, trying to explain something it does not and cannot comprehend. The mind cannot see that it is the Secret drawing nearer and beginning to melt us, to dissolve us. We can say that it is the heart passionately longing for and loving the Secret. But we can also say it is the Secret touching you, completely and passionately burning you up.

We first experience the total nonconceptuality of our true nature as we delve more deeply into the nature of pure awareness and absolute awareness. As we explore the nature and the very substance of these nondual dimensions, as we consider their sense of nothingness, emptiness, and absence, that opens the door for true nature to manifest itself in a way that reveals degrees of freedom that we haven’t even imagined possible. In the usual trajectory of our work, our unfolding development or realization reveals the realization of the absolute—the absolute depth of true nature that is complete freedom from self. Some teachings think of the absolute as the big self or the ultimate self or the ultimate subject. But it is actually the experience of total selflessness, of no self of any kind. The individual self is seen simply as a window for experiencing no self. It is not the center, and there is no center. So the absolute is a profound realization of emptiness of self. It also can appear as the emptiness of everything, the nonbeing of everything in the sense that nothing has an ultimate identity. Things appear and we experience them, but they don’t exist in the way that we usually think.

Disappearing is really wonderful, is beautiful. Everything else within the realm of consciousness is paltry compared to it. Once you experience absolute absence, you know that all the wonderful sublime states of essence, of being, of consciousness and God-realization, are all on one side and the Absolute is on the other side. Regardless of how sublime and wonderful, these states are not one-millionth as wonderful as the state of the Absolute. Consider the highest, deepest experience of consciousness you have had, the most fulfilled and blissful condition. Now imagine a state a million times more satisfying and liberating. That is the Absolute.

It is the dynamism of the absolute’s own emptiness that reveals that the absolute can manifest in ways that are different from how it is usually experienced. The dynamism begins to show not only the relationship of the primordial ground to all the forms that arise within it, but also the relationship of those forms to each other. And as it begins to show the relationship of these forms to each other, we recognize that their relationship to each other is not only that they are all manifestations of the same ground and, therefore, united—which is the view of nondual realization. We realize that is only the beginning of what is implied by that realization. As we further penetrate the emptiness, we begin to see that even though all forms are equal, each form has a unique significance; each form, each particular, contains all the secrets of reality that we have seen in all the aspects or forms of true nature. We see that all forms of experience, and not only the ground of true nature, have implicit in them all of reality. Seeing that each particular is important, which the nondual view neglects to do, ushers in different views of reality that change our understanding of time and space, as we’ve seen in previous chapters.

At the beginning it seems that the Absolute is something very distinct from everything else, but when our experience matures we realize that there is nothing but the Absolute. Everything that happens is a manifestation of the Absolute. Everything is the Absolute, but with form. So wherever we look we see the Absolute. In the experience of cessation, everything disappears; then, everything reappears as a manifestation of the Absolute, as the luminous awareness of the Absolute.

When we turn to the depths of the Absolute there is no experience; there is cessation. Nisargadatta recognizes the absolute truth as pure awareness, but he also says that pure awareness needs something to manifest in order to be aware. The Absolute is the witness, but the witness cannot witness itself because there is nothing to witness then. This is a very interesting characteristic of the absolute truth.

We experience ourselves as vastness, an immensity, an expanse so deep it is absolutely dark. Though dark and still, inscrutable and silent, it is the source of all luminosity and light. And within this immeasurable immensity, we witness the process of creation. We see a dynamic presence, the divine logos, flowing out of the absolute, revealing its potentialities as the manifest reality, disclosing its mysteries as the multidimensional manifold of existence and experience. Yet, because of the infinity of the absolute we see this manifold as a surface phenomena, as if the absolute is so pure and pristine that it glitters and shines, its brilliance forming a surface, colorful and luminous. This colorful and luminous surface of radiance is continually scintillating colors and forms, shapes and patterns. We witness an unfolding surface of clear and variegated light, whose pattern is the totality of creation. The absolute is prior to light, but also its source and ultimate nature and mystery. The light is the unfolding logos, whose pattern is the totality of existence, a dynamic unified manifold. The scintillating light is one unified surface, with no parts and no partitions, a field of radiance full of intelligence and truth, reality and significance.

At one of the stages of its manifestation, the Absolute presents itself as explicit perfection. Here, perfection and completeness are explicit, with all the various perfections present—but in this stage, the qualities are still undifferentiated. We cannot separate one from another. We can know and recognize Love in this manifestation, for example, but we cannot differentiate it from Will. And we can't differentiate Will from Clarity, Clarity from Strength, Strength from Fulfillment, or Fulfillment from Joy. All the qualities are explicit and manifest but not differentiated. We refer to this manifestation as Brilliancy. When we experience Brilliancy, we experience perfection and completeness explicitly because our true nature is manifesting to us in a form characterized by perfection and completeness. By inquiring into Brilliancy, we recognize it as intelligence. It is the presence of pure radiance, pure brilliance.

An important feature of the emptiness of these two dimensions of radical nonconceptuality is that it is unobstructed. As we recognize the unobstructedness, we see that there is no obstruction between the ground of awareness and all the forms that manifest within the expanse of awareness, and also that there is no obstruction between one form and another. This insight opens up a whole new way of experiencing things. Penetrating the nature of the absolute invites further realizations, further ways of experiencing that show that pure awareness is the awareness of Total Being and that the absolute reveals that Total Being is the source of everything. From the perspective of the absolute, you see the absolute as the source of everything and also as the mystery of Total Being. But as we investigate more fully, the situation expands and reveals that Total Being can manifest itself and can appear as any of the nondual dimensions, each one of which reveals some of its potential and reality. So pure awareness displays the awareness of Total Being and the absolute conveys its mystery.

Or we can experience ourselves in the midst of the manifest world, aware of the absolute as the background and underlying nature of all manifestation and perception. Here we experience everything around us as if it were one unified surface, luminous and transparent. We perceive everything -- the floor, the walls, the furniture, and all people present -- clearly as appearance, as the luminous beauty of the logos, radiant with golden truth, and rich with the nectar of love. Yet all this transparent surface is penetrated by the blackness of the mystery. This perception has a sense of beauty and magic, as if we experience the totality of the perceptual field as a luminous and transparent surface, the absolute blackness peering through from all directions, giving the impression of being inside a transparent bubble in an infinite dark space.

Strictly speaking, since all perception is in relation to manifestation, either within it or outside it but witnessing it, we experience the absolute as a boundless dimension. We discussed this mystery in chapter 16, when we used the metaphor of dreaming to illustrate how the truth beyond space and time manifests as and within space and time. From this we see that the absolute in its absoluteness, the unmanifest understood irrespective of manifestation, is beyond dimensions; yet it appears as a boundless dimension that constitutes the final ground and ontological nature of all manifestation and dimensions. In other words, the absolute dimension is constituted by the absolute, or its nature is the absolute. This is similar to saying that the dimension of pure awareness is constituted by nonconceptual presence. So the absolute dimension is the boundless, infinite expanse whose nature is the black mystery of the absolute. When we experience it we experience the absolute, because it is the absolute that is appearing as a dimension; whereas the absolute is not a dimension, but rather the ultimate mystery and source of all dimensions, the unmanifest true nature. Because of this differentiation it becomes ambiguous sometimes to say that the absolute is the unmanifest when we are experiencing the absolute dimension, because a boundless and infinite dimension is necessarily a manifestation.

We may think of this relationship as some form of duality, for there is the absolute and there is its radiance. However, it is not exactly duality, nor is it coemergence. The emanation is not separate from or other than the absolute; rather, it is the radiance of the absolute. If we only knew coemergence of manifestation with the absolute, it might be difficult for us to recognize the true relationship between the absolute and manifest reality, which is that the absolute is always transcendent to manifest forms, regardless of how nondual it is with them. The absolute dimension reveals this relation in a completely clear and unmistakable way: the absolute is always pure and transcendent regardless how immanent it is in manifestation. In other words, regardless of how nondual and inseparable is the absolute from manifest reality, it is always itself. It never leaves its mystery, never leaves its ontological status of transcending both being and nonbeing, never leaves its simplicity and emptiness. More precisely, the absolute never changes regardless of the never-ending manifestation. Because of this we can express this dimension in the paradoxical statement that “the absolute never changes even though it is in constant transformation.”

This also means that when there is no perception there is no consciousness. This black mystery is an awareness so absolute that it possesses no ground to look back at and be aware of. It cannot be an object of perception, for it is the absolute subject. It is absolutely nothing, so there is nothing for it to be aware of when it is aware of itself. It is absolutely being the awareness. This is why the word “absolute” seems to fit it. It has no back. It is the ground of all grounds, the final background. To look backwards only leads awareness back to more superficial dimensions, usually back to appearance.

•  The world is my front,
•  My face,
•  And my back is the mystery.

There is identification with the absolute, just as with the clear crystalline presence. I experience it as my very identity, as the very substance of me. Yet there is no feeling of identity. I am identified with the absolute, without the concept or feeling of identity or self. There is no feeling of I, or identity, just the apperception of the absolute, and recognizing I am none other than that.

But when the absolute looks at itself, it doesn’t see anything. There is nothing to perceive. If you look at the absolute, experience altogether disappears and the next thing you know you are back looking at phenomena. If you sense into it, there is nothing to sense. The absolute is not only nonconceptual, but also it is the source of nonconceptual awareness. And it is subtler than pure, primordial awareness, because there is no perception of sensation and no capacity for self-reflection. The capacity for self-reflection disappears here. In pure awareness, you can self-reflect even though you don’t have to. Here, if you self-reflect, nothing happens—experience stops; it is a non-event. It’s like what you see when you look into nonbeing. This dimension of absolute reality brings in the mysterious darkness, the luminous night.

The Absolute is the realm of complete mystery, or of bedazzlement, as the Sufis say. And only here will the heart feel it has arrived home, at long last. There is wonder, there is beauty, there is Majesty, but it is all mystery upon mystery. The peace is stupendous, the certainty is absolute and the beauty is dazzling. It is the ultimate Beloved of the heart, the Spirit of spirits, and the mystery of all existence. It is the absolute Presence of absolute annihilation, which is then seen to be the primal cause of all. Obviously such words make no sense to the mind, but when consciousness finally reaches this its final abode, the heart will hear these words as music.

This is part of the mystery of true nature, which appears as the ultimate mystery of the absolute. Experientially we recognize both pure awareness and the absolute as nonconceptual. Yet they are phenomenologically different. They differ as day differs from night. Pure nonconceptual awareness is clear, colorless, transparent light that feels like the coemergence of presence and absence. We see a vast expansive space, clear and colorless, bright and limpid. It is a space full of light, just like space in daylight. Yet, it is also a presence with the sense of solidity and fullness. In experiencing the absolute, we perceive a transparent and clear space, but dark, so dark it is absolutely black. The blackness is not a color, but the absence of light. In other words, nonconceptual awareness possesses light while the absolute is ontologically prior to light. They are both transcendent to being and nonbeing, but they differ in their relation to light. We can say that the absolute is the mystery prior to light, but at the same time the source of light.The first light that manifests in it is the nonconceptual light, pure awareness. In other words, both are empty of ultimate existence, but the absolute is much more empty. It is even empty of light, awareness, and hence can be experienced as cessation. Looking into pure awareness we see transparent and light-filled space, pervading all manifest forms, and constituting them. Looking into the absolute we first see darkness, but if we focus on it completely, our awareness spontaneously turns around and we find ourselves witnessing manifestation.

One realizes the Absolute as one's true identity, totally beyond all manifestations, but containing them within its mysterious vastness. The emphasis is on the transcendence of the world, including the body and mind. One becomes the immense solidity of the absolute, totally still and inactive, while dispassionately witnessing the play of all phenomena. He witnesses all phenomena as the dynamic transformation of a cosmic and boundless consciousness, which consciousness arises in his silent immensity as a surface phenomenon. In the vastness of his silence, the world arises in all its multiplicity, but all the world is made out of a conscious presence, a Presence which is a consciousness that can reflect on itself.