The soul’s turn toward truth must be heartfelt, genuine, and deep. When she finally reaches this station, she begins to hear the sweet and merry music of the chariot. By turning toward truth, even at the cost of pleasure, she discovers the true and timeless source of all pleasure and bliss. This vehicle manifests first as a merriment, a festive music, a colorful carousel of brilliant lights, as if the inner space of the soul has become a place where a carnival is taking place. There is an inner hearing of light and festive music, a sense of happy and lighthearted singing and dancing. First, as the vehicle is descending, it seems the carnival is at a distance; but it keeps getting closer until it is inside us, and we are participating in the festivities. Then we see colored lights, twirling and dancing like a carousel, with an inner state of happiness, merriment, and joy. As the Markabah descends, we feel a sense of celebration for our attainment, a celebration for having made the difficult turn. The presence of the Markabah appears first as a state of true and joyful celebration: celebration of our victory, celebration of the truth, and celebration of our true nature. It is as if the Markabah itself celebrates its own arrival. For this arrival is the victory of truth, the victory of nonduality; this turn inward to the inner truth of Being is inevitably the movement toward realizing the nonduality of true nature.

The diamond vehicles are not entities separate from the multidimensional manifold of the soul, but manifestations of its infinite potential, appearing as this manifold morphs itself into these majestic structures, as it morphs its field into sacred space. In the Diamond Approach, there is no attempt to visualize or create such forms in our consciousness. The teachers do not even describe the shapes precisely to their students. They are actual manifestations of true nature, which emerge when the soul is ready and her consciousness is oriented in a way that corresponds to a given vehicle’s mode of consciousness and operation. The inner inquiry naturally opens the soul to such manifestations; the soul does not need to know about them; she does not need to even know that such things exist. In the experience of the author, these vehicles manifested totally without any expectations or prior knowledge. Their arrival was a total surprise, and their forms and functions are beyond any human imagination or intelligence. Each faceted gem of the diamond vehicles is an essential aspect with the objective and precise knowledge of what it is from the perspective of essence itself. Each presents the precise knowledge and understanding of one of the perfections of true nature. Each is the universal knowledge of a ray of colored light differentiated out of the colorless clear light of true nature. Each vehicle is a whole body of knowledge, a complete dimension of wisdom that relates to an important segment of the soul’s experience and functionality, and particularly to what is needed for her inner journey home. Each vehicle appears at some juncture of the inner journey, responding to the needs of the soul at this particular phase, and presents its overall view and knowledge, which is a new synthesis of the knowledge of the soul, essence, and their relationship. Then the specific and precise details of this objective knowledge are provided by each diamond of the vehicle.

This Secret, the ultimate Beloved, is not like any other lover. It will not appear in the heart, it will not come to its abode, as long as there is anyone else there. As long as you have another lover, it won’t arrive. The true Beloved is the most jealous of all lovers; it is absolutely possessive. It either has you completely or it will not even bother to show up. The poem says the Guest arrives only at night, when everything is gone, when all that you love is thrown away, detached from, sacrificed. The inner poverty, the inner destitution, becomes so complete that there is total darkness, nothing left to see at all. Even you are sacrificed, dissolved, gone. This situation cannot be conceived by the mind. Even the heart does not know it until it finally experiences that the fire of this love does not lead to a union. The arrival of the Guest does not mean that you, the mind, or even the heart will finally behold the Guest or be with the Guest. That’s not how the meeting will go. The nature of the Guest will not allow anything else to be present beside it. This love affair will be final. The Guest is the slayer of the mind. The Guest is the bedazzler, the incinerator. Its slaying and its incineration does not happen through melting you in sweet love. It doesn’t go that way. The Guest is not gentle. When the Guest arrives, it doesn’t make you feel nice and wonderful and loving and cozy. That might be your experience of previous lovers. This Beloved has something else up its sleeve. Just feeling its closeness, you begin feeling your mind, your heart, and your body all burning up. And if you stay with it a few seconds, and do not run away out of fear, you’ll be completely annihilated, totally dissolved. The process of being annihilated by the Guest is hot, the most intense passion, a passion that burns, a passion that eats up, a passion that consumes, a passion that kills, a passion more powerful than thermonuclear reaction.