However, if the precious pearl becomes the objective of the system, then there is an innate and built-in safeguard. To really develop and establish the pearl, all sectors of the personality have to be explored and understood. For the pearl to develop, all aspects of essence have to be freed, which will expose all sectors of the personality. Freeing it and establishing its life enables it to displace the totality of the ego structure. Then there is balance, completeness, totality, harmony, fullness, and contentment. There is then no reason to oppose someone or to convert anyone. All inner compulsion will be gone, for the person is realized, and the realization is based on fullness, richness, and value. The individual is then a mature human being, a complete person.

This deepest secret in the unconscious of the personality, like the rest of its deep and repressed sectors, is so inaccessible to the ordinary consciousness and so defended against that it is practically impossible to reach. Relying solely on the direct cultivation of awareness is in most instances not sufficient to penetrate these deepest recesses of the mind. This is one reason the systems that work only on cultivating awareness turn out not to be so efficient in inner development. Here we find one of the greatest uses of essence. Essence can penetrate to these deep, dark corners of the personality. Essence can go all the way because it is the deep. And because essence is intrinsically characterized by awareness, it can take our consciousness to these deep and normally inaccessible places of the unconscious and expose them to observation and understanding. This will in turn expose more holes, so that new and deeper aspects of essence are retrieved. We see here a reciprocal process, in which understanding the personality brings out the essence, and then the essence brings out deeper layers of the personality and so on. This process continues, and awareness expands, until all of the personality is understood, all the way to the experience of its own death and nonexistence. In addition, all aspects of essence will be recognized and developed in the process. This naturally sets the ground for the spontaneous arising of the perception of enlightenment.

As an aspect of essence pushes forward toward consciousness, it acts on the personality. Essence is a force, and the sector of the personality related to the emerging aspect of essence becomes stronger and more forceful in order to be able to resist the emerging essence and to keep it out of consciousness. The very existence of the personality depends on unconsciousness, on maintaining its established patterns and conditioning. The personality does not want to change. As essence emerges, the conflict between essence and personality will be magnified and become more obvious. The conflict between the unconditioned part and the conditioned part becomes the focus of attention. The relevant sector of the personality will manifest more and more strongly now in consciousness, until it becomes imperative for us to look at it and deal with it in a real and effective way. It becomes necessary for us to understand and resolve the issues related to this part of the personality. To avoid or ignore the issues becomes more difficult than to face them. Here, essence acts as a perfect teacher. It does not, like most systems of teaching, try to make us deal with sectors of the personality that we personally experience as syntonic to our well-being. It actually disrupts our habitual equilibrium. Forcefully but gently, and in a balanced way, it reveals each sector of the personality as alien and contradictory to our best interests. No human teacher can be so exact, so effective, and so appropriate.

Any individual, at any time in his life has a certain set of personal preoccupations and concerns which are manifestations of specific sectors of his personality. These are not haphazard. He is dealing with a specific set of issues, conflicts and life situations, and these might be quite different from those of other individuals in his environment. One sector of the personality might dominate his life for long periods of time if he is not successful in resolving the issues and conflicts inherent in it, and so it might appear to others, or to himself, that this is who he really is, this person acting out of this particular set of issues, that there are no other parts of him. The average individual moves between a few sectors of his personality, and most of these sectors are deeply hidden in his unconscious. According to the diamond perspective, the sector of the personality that happens to be dominant at any given time is related to a certain and specific aspect of essence. In fact, according to the diamond perspective, the real resolution of the conflicts and issues in such sectors will bring about the manifestation of the related specific aspect of essence.

We find that each of the essential aspects -- such as will, love, truth, compassion-- is related to a certain part of the personality, to a definite sector. We will also find that each aspect of Essence is not only related to a certain sector of the personality, but also that that sector functions as a specific barrier against the particular aspect of Essence in question. So, a certain sector of the personality which consists of specific beliefs, habits and conflicts will act as a barrier against emptiness, for instance. A different sector will act as a barrier against cosmic consciousness, and so on.