Understanding the macrocosm pearl takes us to the microcosm pearl, the individual personalization of coemergent nondual Being. This is the culmination of the personalization process that we discussed in detail in The Pearl Beyond Price, where the individual soul matures through the inner journey into an integrated and individuated essential person. The soul develops and individuates by realizing the personal essence, the pearl beyond price. This individuation develops by integrating into the pearl the various aspects and dimensions. By integrating the dimensions of descent it finally arrives at the full personal integration, the microcosm pearl. It is the individuation of the soul that personalizes all aspects and dimensions of Reality. We experience it in the form of a crystalline or diamond pearl, a faceted squishy roundedness, an exquisite synthesis of fullness of personal presence, clarity of awareness, sharp diamond facets, and the impossibly total absence of the absolute. We feel full and empty, personal and precise, integrated but totally spontaneous and free.

The soul is not only an expression of coemergent Being, for everything is an expression; she is a special kind of expression. She has the potential to consciously experience herself as an expression of Being and to consciously experience and know Being in its totality; hence she is the only individual manifest form we know that has such potential. Also, she has the potential to become an individual replica of the personal Being, as an integrated totality, an individuated soul, a real person. Furthermore, this development is always unique. No two souls develop identically, though they begin with fundamentally the same potential. Because of this each soul possesses a unique function in the totality of Reality, with a specific contribution, and an original combination of qualities. The microcosm pearl is actually inseparable from one’s work, understanding, contribution, and life; for it is the unique integration of the soul’s potential that makes all these possible and makes them what they are. One’s learning and work is intimately connected to the pearl because these are some of the most important contexts where the soul develops into a diamond pearl. Therefore, part of the process of realization of the microcosm pearl is to recognize and appreciate one’s realization, understanding, and contribution, which can pervade the microcosm pearl with the rich amber syrup of essential value. But it is also important to recognize one’s development as a development out of the absolute, expressing and serving it. In other words, it is always the absolute, or coemergent Being, that is always developing the soul. More accurately, the development of the soul is simply the development of a particular special form that Being manifests. Such recognition increases the blackness of the absolute in the experience of the diamond pearl, deepening the amber of value until it is indistinguishable from the darkness of mystery. It is the ripe fruit of the evolution of the universe; our apprehension of it fills the pearl with the apricot nectar of fulfillment and the rich love of gratitude.

The peace and contentment develop into a sense of fulfillment, as the consciousness attains a nectary fluidity, with the sweetness and aroma of apricot nectar. I feel a sense of maturation, not in terms of capacity, but in the sense of ripening. The fulfilled consciousness becomes a ripening when I experience the soul not only pliant and nectary, but full and sweet, just like a very ripe apricot. The whole soul becomes a heart, a heart full of the most flavorful apricot nectar. This ripening transubstantiates the essential state that arises during the function of teaching. When I take the role of the teacher, I frequently experience myself as an objective presence with various capacities and facets. There is clarity and maturity, intelligence and a dynamic interplay of various aspects of essence. The state feels like being a full pearl of consciousness with clear sharp facets of various colors. I think of this state of teachership as a diamond pearl. After the realization of the absolute, I have been experiencing this state of the incomparable pearl as a manifestation of the mystery. I perceive the inner identity of the pearl as the mysterious radiant blackness of the absolute. This state goes through a further development: As I teach a group meeting, I notice my state is the diamond pearl. However, I also feel the sense of contentment, fullness and ripening which has been my general condition for some time lately. The sense of being a juicy ripe apricot arises as the inside of the diamond pearl. I am now an objective and multifaceted personal presence, but relaxed and settled, fulfilled and ripened. Arriving home ripens the soul, and this ripening is its fulfillment.

The microcosm diamond pearl is a soul that has individuated by the integration of her worldly experience and wisdom with the various aspects and dimensions of her true nature. It is also the individual self-realization of Being with precise awareness and discriminating basic knowledge. If Western thought has developed according to a universal pattern that expresses itself also in the development of the individual soul, then it could develop further toward a higher and more structured level of unity. In other words, we can view the dissociation of the triad in our modern and postmodern Western thought as a stage that can be followed by other stages, all natural to the development of thought. We can envision a further stage, parallel to the stage of essential development of the soul, and further still toward the stage of the microcosm diamond pearl. This will be a stage where Western thought redeems itself, just as the soul can, by finding the unity underlying its dissociation, by appreciating the value of differentiation and discrimination without having to continue the dissociation. This way it can redeem itself by integrating its discriminating knowing with its ground of Being, while still embracing and benefiting from the advancements that have resulted from its dissociation of this knowledge. Western thought then has the potential and possibility of moving to a further stage, where its science can be grounded in the presence of basic knowledge, of the nous, and where its spirituality can achieve the diamond crisp discrimination of this same basic knowledge. A true bridge will then appear between science and spirituality, to their mutual benefit and evolution.7 Just as ego development is a stage of individuation that can lead to essential individuation, Western thought has arrived at ego individuation, expressed in worldly efficient functionality; this can yet progress to essential individuation, with this functionality grounded in the presence and truth of Being. Furthermore, we can view the development of Western civilization as a cultural movement toward individuation, which has arrived only at the ego stage.

In other words, Western culture as a whole can be seen as developing toward being a pearl, a cultural pearl rather than an individual one. To be a pearl means to be integrated in a self-organizing and cohesive manner and to function in a harmonious unified balance, just as ego strength manifests and even more so the soul's pearly individuation. And because Western thought is not anymore confined to the geographic West, but is spreading worldwide, through the transport of Western technologies and values, this pearly development may turn out to be a global one. The fact that globalization is already progressing in many sectors of human interest can be seen as indicating a movement toward an individuated unity of humanity. Furthermore, globalization may include, as an important part of it, the meeting and unification of Western and Eastern thought, in a new and novel synthesis. In other words, the movement toward globalization is bound to include thought and culture, religion and values. Such movement can be at the level of ego development, or it can move to the essential stage. And since West and East have historically differentiated in a general manner into the egoic-logical and the spiritual-nonconceptual, respectively, it would seem that such pearly integration is a distinct possibility. That will mean humanity has the possibility of developing into a species pearl, an integrated and individuated human race. We actually see, by continuing the parallel, that humanity has the potential of developing into a diamond pearl, meaning a humanity that is not only integrated and unified as one harmonious people, but as a unity precisely and clearly aware of its true nature and its connection to the wholeness of Being.

We see in this completely personalized state a total synthesis of the universe of the man of spirit and the universe of the man of the world. This is the true, mature human being, who is neither worldly nor otherworldly, neither personal nor impersonal. He is the potential for everything, the expression of all, the miracle of miracles. Here, man is truly the microcosm, reflecting the totality of all of existence, of all its ontological planes, expressed and embodied in one unique human being. No wonder that some of the wise have thought of him as the isthmus, as the vice-regent of the Absolute, and as the expression of the image of God, of the totality of all that there is. We can appreciate now that the human being is a treasure, incomparable and inconceivable. His objectivity has been likened to a precious diamond, and his personhood to a pearl beyond price. When his personhood becomes objective he is then the rare Diamond Pearl.