Relationships become a playground for encounters that open up the potential for new experience, and our own pleasures as well as difficulties transform into opportunities for deeper contact. Our daily life can become an open field of discovery. When we know ourselves as the openness of Being, we are authentic in the truest sense of the word. Authentic not just because we can say, “This is really how I feel”—no, I mean “authentic” in the sense that we are real because we are the expression of the presence of the realness of our nature. We are the expression of that which makes everything real and allows anything to exist. Authenticity means being the depth of what we are and expressing it in as true a way as we can.

We have seen that in order for us to be authentically and fully ourselves, our identity must include the ontological depth of the soul, essential presence, and that to be presence means simply to be. When we are simply being, our experience of ourselves is direct, immediate, spontaneous, and natural, free from the influence of the thick veil of accumulated memories, ideas, ideals and images. We have also seen that conventional experience does not allow the experience of self-realization because conventional experience is virtually determined by this thick veil of personal history. We have noted that ordinarily the self cannot experience itself separately from the self-representation, and that, in fact, it experiences itself from within, and through, that representation … it now becomes clear that the veil of personal history is the self-representation. Regardless of how realistic the self representation is, it cannot contain the true reality of the self.

Essence is the primary and most precious potential of the soul. The conscious realization of essence brings her true ultimate self-knowledge, authenticity, fulfillment, completeness, enlightenment, and liberation. But essence provides the soul with other advantages, some mundane and practical. Its dimension of pure awareness provides her with the capacity for awareness and perception, in whatever state she is in, spiritual or mundane, clear or dull. Its dimension of basic knowledge gives her the capacity for cognition, recognition, and knowing in all its dimensions. It is the prototype of knowing.The dimension of creative dynamism gives the soul the capacity for action,creativity, discovery, adventure, development, evolution, maturation,unfoldment, and so on.

<p>Authenticity means that the inner flow and the external action are the matter-of-fact reality of the self being itself, just as the heart beats because it is its intrinsic nature to do so.</p>

Relationships become a playground for encounters that open up the potential for new experience, and our own pleasures as well as difficulties transform into opportunities for deeper contact. Our daily life can become an open field of discovery. When we know ourselves as the openness of Being, we are authentic in the truest sense of the word. Authentic not just because we can say, “This is really how I feel”—no, I mean authentic in the sense that we are real because we are the expression of the presence of the realness of our nature. We are the expression of that which makes everything real and allows anything to exist. Authenticity means being the depth of what we are and expressing it in as true a way as we can.

To authentically be oneself is to abide in what the logos’s dynamism of Being happens to be manifesting as one's identity at the moment. This is because Being is always and constantly manifesting all of appearance, including the form and presence of the soul. Therefore, one's authentic and real truth at each moment is what the logos manifests it as. Therefore, to be true to the dynamic intelligence of the logos the soul only needs to recognize this manifestation and abide in it. The soul does not need to do anything to get anywhere; she does not need to direct her experience toward any particular end, whether it is to the absolute or whatever. She cannot determine her own manifestation because it is the logos’s dynamism that actually determines any experience and form.

What makes it so difficult for us as human beings to be deeply authentic and spontaneous, to feel free to be who we naturally are? One aspect of the answer lies in what most spiritual traditions understand to be a case of mistaken identity. Most of us are consciously and unconsciously identified with self-concepts, which greatly limit our experience of ourselves and the world. Who we take ourselves to be, as determined by the sets of ideas and images that define us, is very far from the unconditioned reality that deeply realized human beings have come to recognize as our true nature, who we truly are. Numerous approaches, such as psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and various self-improvement techniques can help us change our self-concepts so that we are more realistic, more satisfied, and more effective in our lives. But only an exploration of the actual nature of the self, beyond the details of its content, can bring us to realms of experience which approach more deeply fulfilling, fundamental levels of philosophical or spiritual truth. Our experience of ourselves can be transformed from identifying with our mental self-images to having awareness of less contingent, more fundamentally real aspects of the self. It is possible to arrive at a place where we can experience ourselves as the actual phenomenon, the actual ontological presence that we are, rather than as ideas and feelings about ourselves. The more we are able to contact the actual presence that we are, the less we are alienated in a superficial or externally defined identity. The more we know the truth of who we are, the more we can be authentic and spontaneous, rather than merely living through concepts of ourselves.

As human beings we naturally want to be real, authentic, and truly ourselves. We might not all be consciously aware of this drive towards authenticity, but inherently we value being ourselves, especially when it is easy and effortless. Fulfillment comes from knowing what and who we are, and we seek security in this knowledge. We want the sense of who we are to be stable, and we want this stability to be firmly established beyond the need for it to be shored up by external factors. Expressing ourselves is a joy, especially when the expression feels truly reflective of our real selves. It is possible to appreciate ourselves even more when we are spontaneous, rather than self-conscious, as we express ourselves authentically. We can enjoy being creative in our lives, especially when what manifests from within us reveals what lies in our depths, expanding and deepening our experience of ourselves. When our sense of who we are is stable, real, positive, and nonconflictual, we experience a sense of worth. When we know what we want, and see that our desires authentically reflect who and what we are, our self-esteem improves, and we find ourselves enjoying truly human interactions. The more effortlessly secure we are in being ourselves, the more we can afford to open up to others, and the more we can naturally act with generosity and magnanimity. Then we are able to feel more in touch with our humanity, and more willing to be kind and sensitive to others; loving becomes a joy and giving a gift.