When we are finally able to experience the soul directly, we can recognize that she constitutes a medium in which all of our inner events occur, a unified container and vessel that is the very fabric of our subjectivity. We can actually experience her as a sensitive field, a field of consciousness or awareness, where all experiences arise and pass away. We can imagine the soul as completely coextensive with the body, forming its experienced interiority. Whatever we perceive as happening within us, whether a thought, an image, an emotion, or a sensation, occurs within the body, but more intimately within the soul, because the soul functions as the sensitivity or awareness of the body. This kind of perception leads us to the understanding of the soul as the inner vessel, necessary for the inner process of transformation. It is then clear why the development of this perception will help hold and support our inner journey. To understand the soul as locus of experience is important for the direct experience and development of the soul. Without this understanding we simply remain in the normal experience of the ego. In this egoic experience there is the experiencer and there is what we experience; the locus is not perceived. Thus, to perceive the locus of experience is to begin to recognize the soul.

So to summarize, we can say that subjectivity means that our approach is dominated or influenced by our personality’s positions, feelings, reactions, preferences, and judgments. Objectivity means the absence of all such inner coercive agencies in the presence of an openness that embodies love, sensitivity, and all the essential qualities that constitute the Diamond Guidance.

Our exploration is not only into the nature of our experience or state, but also into the totality of who we are, including the nature of the part of us that observes or explores. All of this must become an object of study and inquiry. This means that to be objective about a situation, we, as the inquirer, will need to become objective—free from subjective influence. For when we inquire into what prevents our understanding from being objective, we find that it is the fact that we bring our subjectivity to our experience. The truth arises as the truth, but we do not see it as it is because of our own unclarity, our own positions, prejudices, identifications, limitations, preferences, and goals—the totality of which we call subjectivity. However, if we really love the truth for its own sake, we will want to see it as it is, we will want to behold the objective truth. This will translate into the wish and passion to discern all our subjective positions that are preventing objective perception. So, for instance, I do not just realize, “I’m feeling angry,” but I also observe and discern how I feel in response to seeing my anger. Do I have a judgment about it? Do I believe that it’s okay to be angry or not okay to be angry? What are my opinions and prejudices about anger? I explore everything I bring into the experience of anger. In other words, we always need to be aware of our subjective reaction to our experience in order to see how we interfere with it.

Through this discussion we are introducing another element necessary for inquiry besides the love of truth. Love of the truth actually points to this element: the need for objectivity. In inquiry, perception and understanding become objective at some point, which means that they become the perception and understanding of the facts of the matter – what actually is. Then we are perceiving what is truly arising in the situation, and our understanding is the discernment of the truth of what is arising or unfolding. Then neither our understanding nor our perception is colored by our subjectivity… True objectivity is the most compassionate, loving attitude because it is totally open to the truth. This truth is not only the savior, it is also the beloved.