In realizing the freedom vehicle, we realize that each of us is an objective, precise instrument for the absolute. We exist as its eyes, its mouths, its ears, its arms, its legs, its genitals, its brains, its nervous systems, its mind, its intellect, its heart, and so forth. The complete and natural function of any of these organs, and hence of our bodies and souls, is to be an instrument of the absolute, allowing the absolute to behold and experience its own creation, its own display of its hidden treasures. To be fully ourselves is to faithfully serve the absolute, to purely and selflessly do its bidding. In serving it, in surrendering our wills completely to its dynamic will, we find our happiness and fulfillment. We cannot be happy by trying to fulfill our separate and self-centered wishes and desires, if they conflict with the natural outflow of the logos of true nature. Recognizing our selfishness and egotism, and understanding how these positions dissociate us from our true nature, allows us to align our wishes with the natural flow of Reality. First we need to align our identity with the absolute ipseity; but deeper still, we need to align our will with the will of the ipseity. As the freedom vehicle we can recede and merge into our inner nature, which is the vastness of the absolute mystery. We are then the vast stillness and silence that underlies all that is, an absence without which no presence can be. But also, as the freedom vehicle we can manifest as individuals in the world, bringing forth and expressing the qualities of the absolute, and thus serving the absolute. In effect, we are either the absolute mystery or its absolute servant. There is nowhere else to be.

In this book, I am introducing some of the wisdoms related to the third and fourth turnings of the wheel of the teaching. The third turning of the wheel has to do with what I refer to as the freedom vehicle. This vehicle signals a move beyond even the boundlessness, unity, and nonduality of true nature. It presents reality from an entirely different vantage. Basically, it is like going to a parallel universe that is altogether different from ours, and then contemplating realization, enlightenment, and spirituality from the perspective of this new universe. We are investigating the same phenomena that we always have, but from a radically different angle. The fourth turning of the wheel reveals understandings that arise from the realization of the freedom vehicle. Reality opens up in many unexpected ways, showing that enlightenment and realization have many meanings. Not only are there different stages of realization, as we see in the first and second turns of the teaching, but there are also different kinds of realization. We discover many angles and perspectives from which to view and explore reality. The view of totality arises as one of the wisdoms of the fourth turning. Throughout this book, we will be exploring different understandings that arise from the teaching of the freedom vehicle. The kinds of openings and freedom that are revealed in the fourth turning are a result of discerning the implications of the freedom vehicle. The first turning begins with the individual consciousness and moves, in the second turning, into the formless nature of reality. Similarly, the third turning starts with the freedom vehicle instead of the soul and moves, in the fourth turning, into a parallel reality that is neither boundless nor not boundless.

To be an instrument of the absolute is to be its absolute servant, which is the same as being a complete, thoroughly ripened, and mature human adult. This is human happiness and fulfillment. This is the station of realization of the freedom vehicle, which is the reason we frequently refer to it as the body of service. We develop a new subtle body, which inherently recognizes its function as servicing the truth of Reality. It is a precise, clear, totally objective wisdom, completely free from subjective bias or reaction. This functioning may appear as a limitation when compared with the station of abiding in the absolute, and students tend to react to it in this manner, yet it is actually a deeper and higher realization. For in this station there is no preference at all; there is no need at all for any state or condition, not even for that of the absolute.

The relationship of the soul to the macrocosm, and specifically to its absolute essence, becomes clearly delineated by the advent of a new diamond vehicle that manifests as part of the journey of descent, the freedom vehicle. It clarifies where lies the true freedom of the soul, and how this freedom is inseparable from the life of service. Amongst the many elements of the infinite wisdom inherent to this vehicle, one that is paramount to the soul in terms of her life and development is the objective and precise wisdom regarding the soul’s role in the cosmic manifestation. What is important about it for our life on earth is that it contains the objective wisdom of what an individual being is in relation to the cosmos, and what his or her function is in actuality. The freedom vehicle clearly indicates this wisdom, which reveals our presence as a direct manifestation and extension of the absolute into cosmic manifestation. It is the absolute, nonlocal, and nonextended; yet it is a form localized in the world of time and space. It is a bridge between timelessness/spacelessness and time/space. It is itself beyond time and space, but protrudes into them, bringing through its emanations the richness inherent in the absolute.