When you see someone who is really brilliant, really intelligent—such as one of the great synthesizers of science—your subtle perception might notice that it is the presence of the substance of Brilliancy in his mind that makes the person brilliant. When we say that someone is brilliant, it is more literally true than we usually think. So to be brilliant is not just to have brilliant thought patterns. There is also luminescence—a radiance or brightness in that person’s functioning that you can actually perceive directly. It is this perceivable brilliance that imparts the qualities of beauty, grace, and elegance. Brilliancy gives intelligence to any functioning in which it is present. What we ordinarily recognize as brilliance in the functioning of some individuals is the expression of the presence of Brilliancy in their psyche. We see its influence in their functioning and we say they are brilliant. If we were able to look with our inner eye into their psyches, we would perceive the aspect of Brilliancy present in their consciousness, like a luminous fluid lighting up their functioning from inside.

All this means that we don’t actually do anything in the process of understanding. What needs to happen is just an awareness of the fact that you’re resisting, an understanding of the process of resistance. When you understand it, your interest in resistance stops. All you can do is allow that to happen; the rest is not up to you. The rest is up to Essence. That’s why it is sometimes called grace. Grace can descend and dissolve you. It can make you part of it. But you cannot let go, you cannot surrender, you cannot accept. You can only see that you are rejecting, that you’re not surrendering, that you’re not letting go. Then you are seeing the activity of the ego. When there is surrender and letting go, there is no activity and ego is not there. The cessation of resistance, the cessation of rejection, the cessation of defense, is also the dissolution of that part of the personality. It may bring fear because you believe that you will disappear. And you may be concerned about who will do what is required if you don’t do it. You need trust and confidence in Essence here.

Now, if the individual can do nothing to be free from boundaries, then how can this issue be resolved? How do these boundaries dissolve? They dissolve through the action of Essence itself. This can be called blessing, or grace, or divine intervention, and in some sense it is, but it is really a natural phenomenon, with its own immutable laws. One cannot do anything to dissolve ego boundaries, but if one truly loves truth then one is bound to explore and eventually understand this whole issue of boundaries, separation and individuality. The issue arises and will finally become clear, and distinctly uncomfortable, because of the continued experience of the Personal Essence. One’s curiosity based on love of truth for its own sake will turn one’s attention naturally and spontaneously to understanding this issue. One does not have to have any attitude towards boundaries. He is only interested in the truth, not for any end, but because he loves Truth deeply. Truth will expose this issue as an issue because in reality there is no such thing as a boundary; Truth is ultimately a boundless presence, as we will see in the next chapter, and this will emerge first as the dimensions of Essence that will expose and dissolve the falseness of boundaries.

It is true that guidance is a grace, a benediction, a blessing from beyond, from the source that is unseen; however, blessings do not arise if we are not open to them. Blessing does not try to bore into us like a power drill. It is very delicate in its operation. It doesn’t come to us when we are defended, doubtful, resisting, and disbelieving in guidance. It arises only when we relax, open up, and don’t take positions against it. This has to do with the very nature of how our consciousness functions. Guidance is not something sitting over there saying, “Pay attention to me—I’m here to guide you.” It has to do with our own inner Being opening up and revealing some of its possibility. Only when we open up through whatever means—necessity, calamity, or true sincerity—does the blessing arise and guide us. Even if you believe in such a guidance, but you believe that the guidance must arise as a person with a long beard, as an angelic being, or as a diamond spaceship, that could block it as well. Both negative beliefs and positive beliefs become barriers if they are inaccurate. So openness means that you are spacious and allowing about the possibility that guidance exists, that it can come in unfamiliar forms, and that you are interested in finding out what is true. So I am not saying to replace negative belief with positive belief. Openness is the absence of belief.

It is not that when you go through the emptiness you'll feel "Oh, now I have a true self." The perspective of having something is the perspective of the separate self, the personality. So it not that you are a little brilliant entity and you have love, compassion, beauty; no, the whole shift happens because the true identity is the identity with all Essence, with all of reality. This very moment, not related to past or future, is the center, and from there you can see that you are nothing but grace. Not only does life have meaning, but it is a grace, as if the heavens opened and poured grace into you. You will see that your very nature is that grace, pure unoriginated preciousness, which you don't see by looking but by being. There is no sense of separateness between the looking and the being; they are one act. To be yourself means you are Essence, you are Being, you are the significance, you are the meaning.

The soul is a particular local form that has the potential to glow much more intensely than physical forms, and more completely than any essential form. It is a manifestation of true nature, embodying its potential and dynamism, but doing so in time and space, in the world of manifestation. It is a particular wave of the ocean of Being, but a special wave. Its specialness is in its potentiality, reflecting the infinite potential of transcendent true nature itself. Each boundless dimension reveals more of the nature of the soul and her objective relation to true nature on the one hand, and the world of manifestation on the other. We will discuss the contribution of each dimension in the following chapters, but reserve for the last chapters in the book a full discussion of the nature of the relation between true nature and the soul. Divine love reveals that the soul is an inseparable offspring of true nature, a child of the divine. The soul is a body of light, a drop of grace that embodies the total potential of the transcendent, but in a particular and individual manner. She is a potential necessary for the emergence of further possibilities within true nature. This dimension also reveals that the soul is the expression of the love and grace of true nature, and the carrier of this love in the world of manifestation. The soul is the manifestation that can consciously experience true nature in all of its fullness and splendor, contemplate its knowledge and mysteries, reflect on its miraculousness and majesty, and celebrate its beauty and magic.The soul is the organ of experience and expression of true nature and, hence, the organ of consciousness of Reality.

You will see how your value and respect, your consideration and love towards people, depends on the truth. You will see that when you see someone loving the truth, you will naturally tend to love them more. It’s as simple as that—not because it is good to love them, but because you can’t help it; it’s a natural thing. You notice that the more you love the truth, the more you respect yourself, and you cannot help but respect other people who love the truth. It is natural to love the truth when the state of balance is reached. It is not something that should happen, not a moral or a judgmental perspective. What makes things beautiful, what brings grace and dignity, is truth; balance is the spontaneous, natural result. Truth has these three elements, as well as others. What makes something beautiful is the truth in it. What makes something graceful is the truth in it. What makes something dignified is the truth in it. Falseness brings in ugliness, awkwardness, and indulgence and lack of self-respect. The more a person loves the truth, the more she will naturally and spontaneously want to live her life according to the truth. The truth is not just something you understand or something you experience. Truth begins to influence and determine and govern your life. It is in the living and the doing of life according to the love of truth that makes one’s life a life of beauty, grace, and dignity. You can understand your measure of balance, and your measure of development and refinement, just by seeing what you do in your life. Do you live your life according to the truth? How much do you live your life according to the truth?