Synthesis has to do with putting things together: seeing the whole picture and comprehending it as a unified truth. We take the analyzed experience—experience broken down into components—and then see the elements in a new combination. So we begin inquiry with disparate elements of experience: memories and impressions, observations and reactions. Understanding emerges only when an integration occurs—seeing all of the elements together in such a way that the whole forms a particular meaning. This meaning of the whole is what we call a synthesis. Of course, there must be a prototype, an underlying basis for this ability to synthesize. What is that prototype? Because Brilliancy is the original synthesis of all qualities, it is the prototype and archetype of synthesis on the essential level. And because it is an inherent synthesis, an intrinsic unity, its presence makes it possible for us to see the underlying synthesis in the various elements that we have analyzed. Brilliancy functions as the capacity for synthesis in any dimension, just as the Red Essence functions as the capacity for discrimination in any dimension.

The insight of the Diamond Guidance derives also from a synthesis. However, unlike in Brilliancy, the aspects in the Diamond Guidance are differentiated. Therefore, the synthesis of Guidance happens by correlating the various elements in a situation. The way it works is that the elements are first analyzed, seen separately. For example, in a given situation, there may be anger, sadness, a contraction here, a memory there, this action and that defense. These are all discriminated patternings. The Guidance sees all of these and then correlates them to find the connections between them and between the various groupings. It recognizes their relationships and interactions in a precise and detailed manner. It sees how they connect to each other, how they affect each other, how one leads to another: how sadness leads to the anger, how anger leads to fear, and how the fear is related to the contraction, how the whole thing is related to what one’s mother did, how what one’s mother did led to marrying this or that person, how marrying that person led to having that specific kind of job, which then explains one’s present financial difficulty. That is the process that happens when inquiring with the Guidance. This is usually an organized, orderly, and clear process, a precise seeing of interrelationships and interactions. This process ultimately reveals the unity that underlies all of them. This is how the Guidance uses synthesis in its overall functioning.

The essential intellect or nous operates not only with the enhanced intellectual capacities of discrimination and synthesis, but even though it is essential presence it can operate in conjunction with the soul’s normal intellect, with its logic, reason, and ordinary knowledge. Here, instead of ordinary knowledge obscuring our basic knowledge, the nous uses it to reveal and unfold the infinite potentials of basic knowledge. The essential nous can also operate in conjunction with reason and logic, applied to spiritual experience in all its dimensions and subtlety. The essential nous is one of the natural secrets of the wisdom teachings; it was mentioned and discussed a great deal, but most contemporary investigators miss it for they do not understand it. They cannot understand it because they are subject to the dissociation of knowing and being. We can mention one more thing about the functioning of the nous: it can combine with ordinary thinking to the extent that thinking becomes the flow of essence and its aspects, in a stream that scintillates with insight and understanding. Thinking becomes objective thinking, intentional, truly rational, steady, focused, and to the point. It is the operation of true nature in the process of discerning wisdom.

One can see from the perspective of the nondifferentiated Being, the Supreme reality of the oneness of existence, that all aspects of Essence are differentiations proceeding from this original undifferentiated source. The Personal Essence is the synthesis of all differentiated aspects of Essence... So individuation is the integration of the results of differentiation. The incomparable Pearl is the individuation on the Being level. It is a new synthesis, which in a sense creates a personal Being from the impersonality of the nondifferentiated Being. The capacity for synthesis on the Being level belongs to another aspect of Essence-objective understanding.

Synthesis is not experienced as putting things together in a unified whole: this is the quality of the synthetic capacity the mind. The Being capacity for synthesis manifests in the ability to see the unity before differentiation. One does not bring two things together; one simply does not see them as two.

Synthesis is the recognition of the underlying unity that is already present in the various elements of a situation. Sometimes synthesizing means seeing the common factor that brings apparently unrelated elements together; it is seeing a factor that is already present in the situation but not perceived at the outset. For instance, if you are considering several experiences or impressions, to try to connect them in some logical fashion is not synthesis. Synthesis refers to the way that you might suddenly, in a flash, see how they fit together. That flash occurs by you perceiving the unifying factor that is common to all of the elements. Synthesis is the opposite of analysis, which is the process of dividing things up. Synthesis does not come by simply putting things together. You can never take two things, relate them in a linear way, and then come up with a synthesis. You can call that organization, you can call it combination—but it is not synthesis, at least not from the perspective of Brilliancy. Putting things together by connecting them would be more like integration. Synthesis is something more fundamental than that. The synthetic quality of Brilliancy gives our mind and consciousness the capacity to perceive the self-existing unity that is already present in the situation, the common factor in the various elements or objects under consideration.

Synthesis: One can see from the perspective of the non-differentiated Being, the Supreme reality of the oneness of existence, that all aspects of Essence are differentiations proceeding from this original non-differentiated source. The Personal Essence is the synthesis of all differentiated aspects of Essence. This is similar to Hartmann’s concept of differentiation from the undifferentiated matrix, and his notion that the final ego development is the integration that follows such differentiation. So individuation is the integration of the results of differentiation. The incomparable pearl is the individuation on the Being level. It is a new synthesis, which in a sense creates a personal Being from the impersonality of the non-differentiated Being. The capacity for synthesis on the Being level belongs to another aspect of Essence—objective understanding. This aspect has the capacity for both analysis and synthesis on all levels of perception and knowledge. It is closely related to the Personal Essence; it is the inner guidance needed for its realization and development. But, like all other aspects, it becomes integrated into the Personal Essence at some point in the process of inner realization. The synthetic capacity is then experienced as a quality of one’s own Being. Synthesis is not experienced as putting things together in a unified whole: this is the quality of the synthetic capacity of the mind. The Being capacity for synthesis manifests in the ability to see the unity before differentiation. One does not bring two things together; one simply does not see them as two.

So experientially, the state of synthesis means a sense of no gap. Nothing is missing. The way it is recognized in terms of affect is a sense of completeness, absolute completeness. That “I am complete.” Usually, we don't know what it means to be complete. We have never felt being complete in a real way. Completeness is a very unusual perception. To know it, one has to actually be the aspect of intelligence, be the Brilliancy, and be it completely. It is not, “I'm experiencing it, tasting it, feeling it, using it,” and so on. No. That kind of experience means there is a sense of incompleteness. The completeness happens when the person totally settles into the actual aspect of Brilliancy. The completeness cannot be described in words. It can only be contrasted to other kinds of experiences. In completeness, there is no need, no wanting, no desire, and no interest. There is no movement and no impulse toward movement of any kind out of the completeness because nothing is missing. There is not even curiosity, no stirring at all in the mind. And completeness is not a collection of parts but a seamless presence. It is a beingness that is a sense of amazing purity and innocence, radiance and brilliance. Its texture is a sense of smoothness, delicacy, exquisiteness and brightness. A completeness that defies words, really.

Capacity and capable functioning come from absorption of whatever internal and external experiences you have. Absorption of experience leads to true growth and development. This growth, in which Being comes in contact with mind and experience, is an alchemical reaction or a synthesis which develops into the capacity for functioning in the world. This synthesis is actually what makes us grow as human beings. It is not something you have to search for; it is there all the time. The only thing that needs to happen for you to absorb, digest, metabolize, and assimilate your experience is to be there—simply to be. If you are searching, trying to figure things out, thinking, worrying, hoping, and desiring, you are cut off from your being. If you are cut off from your being, there is no contact between Being and experience and therefore no understanding. When there is no understanding there is no metamorphosis, and without that there is no growth and development in functioning. Do you see what this Work is, from this perspective? Do you see what understanding is? From this perspective, the work of inquiry and understanding that we do is nothing but the metabolism of unmetabolized food in your mind. It is nothing more than that. You have had many experiences throughout your life that you still have not digested, that remain in your mind as the unconscious: memories, thoughts, identifications, feelings, actions, patterns, and the like. They are giving you trouble because you have indigestion—mental indigestion—because these reactions need to be digested and absorbed. Your mind is meant to be empty, not full of all your history and reactions and identifications.