Brilliancy arrives at insight in one shot, at a glance, as if intuitively. It doesn’t need to go through the various correlations. It is fast and breathtaking. However, it does not see the details of interactions and relationships between the various elements of the situation. We arrive at insight, but most of the time we don’t know how we got there. There isn’t as much perception, understanding, or knowledge in the process of arriving at the insight, which often makes it difficult to communicate it to others. However, since the Diamond Guidance has Brilliancy as an aspect, it can use the capacity for direct illumination by simply seeing the gestalt without also seeing how the illumination came about.

So intelligence reflects completeness, and Brilliancy is the most complete because it has all the perfections and aspects in it, undifferentiated. When we experience Brilliancy, we feel it as Love, Will, Clarity, Peace, Joy, and Truth all at the same time. Our sense of it is completeness. Whenever there is a hole in our soul, that means an aspect is missing. In Brilliancy, nothing is missing because all the aspects are present; there are no holes. We can actually feel the particular affect of completeness. And because Brilliancy is complete, it brings about the most perfect action possible. It is the most perfect in the sense that it is the most optimizing, which means that it is the most effective in drawing us nearer to our true nature. The optimal direction for the experience of the soul is the one that leads her as close to her home as possible. Intelligence is a very difficult concept to analyze because it includes many elements, many facets. We first need to realize that the intelligence of Brilliancy is not just mental intelligence, it is intelligence in any dimension, any action. We can have intelligence in the response to a situation, in the way we live our life, the way we think, the way we inquire, the way we interact, the way we communicate. This intelligence is organic and it underlies the actual experience of our consciousness. Brilliancy is the inherent intelligence of our Being. The more in touch we are with it, the more it penetrates and pervades our life, our perception, our experience, and our actions.

Today we will review and look further at the qualities of the aspect of Brilliancy so that we can get a more complete picture of what we are working with. I have talked about Brilliancy in terms of intelligence. Brilliancy is a phenomenologically descriptive term, and intelligence is a functionally descriptive one. And then there is the actual experience, the direct and immediate experience of being the Brilliancy. What is that like? It is true that Brilliancy is a quality that adds brilliance and brightness, which makes all the essential manifestations and capacities shine and expand. But that is not the same thing as actually being this aspect oneself. Brilliancy gives brilliance to everything; and we can say that the brilliance we see anywhere comes from Brilliancy. But Brilliancy is itself concentrated brilliance, brilliance that exists on its own instead of being the brilliance of anything. It is just the existence of pure Brilliancy. This is very hard to imagine, for nothing in nature exists like that. If you see a color that is brilliant, it is the brilliance of that color, for brilliance in nature is not a color on its own. It is a characteristic of color but not one of the colors. So we see it as a characteristic of something else; we don’t see it as an actual existence, as something that exists on its own, as an independent presence. So nowhere in nature do we find Brilliancy on its own, self-existing.

One of the ways Brilliancy is useful for the Work of essential realization relates to intensity, or amplitude. When essential presence has the aspect of Brilliancy, you experience that the voltage is suddenly raised in all the processes going on inside you. Brilliancy gives a radiance to all manifestations, including your mind and body. Your processes become more radiant, more brilliant, which means that they become purer and more themselves. When Brilliancy is experienced and realized, one’s process accelerates. It has a magnifying effect, an empowering effect, on everything within your field. It is as if your essence were getting a shot in the arm. It makes everything more alive, more luminous, and in a sense, more itself. Everything functions better, more efficiently, more accurately, more to the point. Brilliancy exists on its own—it independently functions as intelligence —but it also magnifies the functioning of everything else. And yet what characterizes the actual nature of Brilliancy is its direct presence in the soul, which then manifests in the thoughts and actions of that person in the world.

We can say that the Absolute is the unmanifest completeness and Brilliancy is the manifest completeness. Hence the Absolute is the unmanifest synthesis and Brilliancy is the manifest synthesis. Thus, Brilliancy is like the manifest Absolute. And it is in fact the radiance, or the brilliance, of the Absolute. If we go to the Absolute dimension, we see that radiance is the way the Absolute manifests its perfections. Its first manifestation is its pure radiance, its completeness, its intelligence. This, then, is the manifest presence of Brilliancy. So the Absolute is the synthesis of all essential aspects before manifestation. Brilliancy is the synthesis of all essential aspects after manifestation. Both of them are complete: One of them is absolutely dark, one of them is absolutely bright. The Absolute is complete fecundity, complete darkness, complete blackness, while Brilliancy is complete brilliance, complete light, complete whiteness. This is really the difference between the unmanifest and the manifest. I am just connecting Brilliancy with the Absolute so you can more fully understand completeness and synthesis. Remember, synthesis means that you don’t have different parts. Brilliancy is one complete unity. You can’t take it apart; you can’t analyze it. Thus, it gives the psyche the capacity for synthesis in all of our spheres of functioning.

At one of the stages of its manifestation, the Absolute presents itself as explicit perfection. Here, perfection and completeness are explicit, with all the various perfections present—but in this stage, the qualities are still undifferentiated. We cannot separate one from another. We can know and recognize Love in this manifestation, for example, but we cannot differentiate it from Will. And we can’t differentiate Will from Clarity, Clarity from Strength, Strength from Fulfillment, or Fulfillment from Joy. All the qualities are explicit and manifest but not differentiated. We refer to this manifestation as Brilliancy. When we experience Brilliancy, we experience perfection and completeness explicitly because our true nature is manifesting to us in a form characterized by perfection and completeness. By inquiring into Brilliancy, we recognize it as intelligence. It is the presence of pure radiance, pure brilliance. The brilliance, the radiance, is like white light that contains all the colors of the spectrum. Clear light does not manifest the prismatic colors, nor does black light. More precisely, the clarity and the blackness have all the colors in an implicit way, not explicitly. In Brilliancy, they are explicit but not differentiated, not discriminated yet. That’s why when we experience manifestation directly out of the Absolute, we always see it as a radiance, as a brilliance, as illumination.

The aspect of Brilliancy is the deepest differentiated nature of our consciousness. If you really let your consciousness emerge, and be purely itself, you realize that it manifests more and more of that brilliance, smoothness, delicacy, elegance, impeccability, and intelligence. And because that is the true inner nature of our consciousness, it can infuse any of the other aspects and capacities. It can make our actions more intelligent, our thinking more intelligent, our responses more intelligent, our decisions more intelligent, our timing more intelligent, our organization more intelligent, our analysis more intelligent—everything actualizes more of its capacity. Intelligence is not just something that functions on its own. It is more like a fuel additive, a quality you can add to any of the capacities to make them function more efficiently, more elegantly, more smoothly, and more easily.

Brilliancy is a perfection in the sense that it is completely undefiled true nature, just like the Absolute. We experience and recognize this perfection directly, in a positive sense, not in an indirect or negative sense. Because it is qualityless, the Absolute is perfect, but without the feeling or concept of perfection being present. In Brilliancy, perfection is a discriminated specific quality of the Absolute. That is why we consider Brilliancy to be one of the aspects of Essence. The presence of Brilliancy is so fine, so delicate, so subtle, that it is like a substance of utmost refinement, utmost delicacy, utmost smoothness and fluidity. It is like a substance made out of brilliance itself... when we can recognize Brilliancy as the essence of intelligence, we can begin to understand the fundamental elements of intelligence.

There is in you an agent of unification which is an elixir present in every human being, and without which there is no life. It is itself pure intelligence, and everything is a result of that intelligence. It includes even ignorance and suffering that results from ignorance. This primary first cause, this primary intelligence which every human being has, is itself the hope for unification, and the agent of unification. It is what goes through the process of unification, and leads towards the final result of the unification, the unity. It includes differentiation and the movement toward differentiation because even that is part of a bigger movement toward unification. Every living being has some intelligence, an intelligence that is pure brilliance. It is no longer a differentiated color; it is the brilliance of all colors. It is no longer a differentiated quality; it is the brilliance of all qualities. All qualities, all aspects, all things become radiant, luminous, brilliant—become their truest nature, brilliance itself. It is light upon light.

Brilliancy usually flows in the body through the cerebrospinal fluid in the spinal column. As such, it is directly involved with the nervous system and the brain, so it affects the functioning of thought. Imagine Brilliancy flowing through your synapses; imagine feeling it in your nerves. Imagine the sensation of exquisite smoothness and purity coursing through your nervous system, lighting it up, setting it ablaze with the brilliance of intelligence. Like a lubricant or a conducting substance of complete smoothness in your nervous system, Brilliancy dissolves any resistance in the nerves with its smoothness and flow, with its incredible ease, speed, and penetrating power. Brilliancy makes the inner sensation of your consciousness so delicate, so subtle, so exquisite, that you truly know what the refinement of consciousness means. Although its presence can be quite full and immense, Brilliancy makes you feel as if your senses have been cleansed with some kind of divine shower, so that your very sensations are exquisiteness itself. Even clarity is seen as an external reflection of that pure radiance. Brilliancy is the explosion of illumination from which clarity comes.

The true essential quality of Brilliancy is a living quality to the consciousness that is aware and present. It has a sense of a luminous kind of intelligence that will affect our capacities in terms of seeing, perceiving, and also understanding and apprehending. The effect on the aesthetic sense—the elegance and the purity—is just beautiful. It makes us, our sense of presence, our life, and the environment, have a quality that is spiritual. It is actually more real than just calling it divine or spiritual. It attains an immaculate quality. Everything becomes more itself in a very pure, radiant way.

By exploring the Brilliancy Diamond, we will know objectively and precisely what intelligence is and how it functions in understanding. As we have discussed, Brilliancy as an aspect is a very clear, very explicit sense of presence. Its substance is so pure, so compacted with true nature, that its presence is palpable. It is exquisitely smooth. We can feel it as a flowing, luminous presence, with a density similar to that of mercury but infinitely smoother and finer. If we see the reflection of sunlight in a mirror, and then imagine liquefying it, we get the effect of brilliance. Brilliancy is so intense that it looks almost like a continuous explosion of light. When we see this beautiful brilliance, we understand why and how Being is intelligent. It is intelligent not only when it manifests in thought but also as intrinsic and organic brilliance, which is the underlying intelligence in any sphere of action.

I call the aspect of intelligence Brilliancy because it is the presence of brilliance that is not the brilliance of something. The experience of the aspect of intelligence is what you would perceive if you took the brilliance of any color and made it an independent quality, a presence on its own that is purely brilliance and is not the brilliance of anything else. This pure brilliance, existing on its own, is the very consciousness and substance of intelligence. What you observe is brilliance in itself, not something that is brilliant. So I call the quality itself Brilliancy in order to differentiate it from the characteristic of brilliance. Physical perception of the natural world reveals no thing, no color that is just brilliance. Brilliance is always a quality of something. On the essential level, however, brilliance exists independently; it exists as a pure Platonic form, as pure presence, as the actual substance of intelligence. It is like a medium, or a liquid, that is made out of brilliance. If you can imagine taking a mirror and holding it in the sun until you see the brilliance of the reflection, and then taking that brilliant reflection and liquefying it, you would have some idea of what the flow of the presence of Brilliancy looks like. It is like a liquid mirror.

The presence of Brilliancy is so fine, so exquisite, and so delicate, that it operates in an amazingly penetrating way. It can penetrate anywhere. There is no place in the body or in the psyche that Brilliancy cannot easily penetrate; it just flows smoothly, as if there were no hole too small for it. That is why brilliant minds are also penetrating minds. Penetration is part of the exquisiteness of the functioning of intelligence, one of the elements that makes intelligence not only brilliant but also beautiful, delicate, and refined. Experiencing intelligence is knowing yourself as the most delicate, the most refined, the most exquisite presence, and at the same time as organically intelligent in a purely brilliant way. The presence of an essential aspect manifests as a substance, as subtle matter, only through the direct and immediate experience of that aspect. This direct experience of each aspect has characteristics of color, texture, taste, and so on. In terms of color, Brilliancy is brilliant, which is not one of the known colors. One can say it is brilliant white, or brilliant silver white, but that is not completely accurate. The color is pure brilliance, like the shimmering reflection of the sun on the surface of an ocean or lake. What you see are pools of liquid brilliance. This is the closest thing in nature to the way Brilliancy is seen in inner vision. In our consciousness, the texture of this light is total smoothness—absolutely delicate, exquisitely fine and refined. Its flow is so smooth and easy that it moves with amazing speed. Even mercury is dull and slow compared to the flow of Brilliancy.

And yet what characterizes the actual nature of Brilliancy is its direct presence in the soul, which then manifests in the thoughts and actions of that person in the world. In the experience of the presence of Brilliancy, I experience myself not as a body with thoughts and feelings but as a palpable presence, as the very presence of some brilliantly luminous fluid. I am usually in touch with the body and its feelings and thoughts, but I am aware of myself as a sensitive fluid that pervades the body, and which feels deeper and more fundamental than the muscles and bones. And this palpable fluid, which is not really physical—even though it has texture and density like physical matter—feels like the presence of inner luminosity, like condensed brilliant light. This fluid light is so pristine, so immaculate, so true and absolutely uncreated or contaminated by mind or memory, that it has the distinct sense of being totally pure. The palpable fluid feels like the presence of purity itself. Brilliance and purity are two characteristics of the same fluid, just as pure water is both transparent and wet. We cannot separate the transparency and wetness in water, just as we cannot separate brilliance and purity in Brilliancy.

Brilliancy is different from all other essential aspects in that it is a self‑existing, unified synthesis of all essential aspects. When you experience Brilliancy, you feel complete in the sense that all essential aspects are present but are not differentiated. So Brilliancy is the nondifferentiated essential aspect. We can say that it is the source out of which all essential aspects differentiate. That is why in the past I used to call Brilliancy the Essence-of-the-Essence. Its very presence has all the qualities of Essence implicit in it: Strength, Compassion, Love, Clarity, and so on. All of them are there, but completely synthesized as one presence.

In some universal sense, if you divide essential aspects into masculine and feminine, you may make Brilliancy into a masculine quality, but that doesn't mean it belongs only to men. On a universal level, masculine and feminine have nothing to do with men and women, have nothing to do with genitals or gender. They're just different ways of classifying qualities. In the religious traditions, essential aspects are divided into masculine and feminine in order to go along with the conventional understanding. Because most minds think that the masculine is a particular way and the feminine is another way, the traditions tend to divide qualities into masculine and feminine. But that doesn't mean that masculine qualities are only for men and feminine ones are only for women. Love, for instance, is considered a feminine quality, but it doesn't mean only women can experience Love. Will is a masculine quality, but that doesn't mean only men can experience Will. So each human being, man or woman, can experience equally all the masculine and feminine qualities. From the perspective of this division, Brilliancy has a sense of being masculine.

At one of the stages of its manifestation, the Absolute presents itself as explicit perfection. Here, perfection and completeness are explicit, with all the various perfections present—but in this stage, the qualities are still undifferentiated. We cannot separate one from another. We can know and recognize Love in this manifestation, for example, but we cannot differentiate it from Will. And we can’t differentiate Will from Clarity, Clarity from Strength, Strength from Fulfillment, or Fulfillment from Joy. All the qualities are explicit and manifest but not differentiated. We refer to this manifestation as Brilliancy. When we experience Brilliancy, we experience perfection and completeness explicitly because our true nature is manifesting to us in a form characterized by perfection and completeness. By inquiring into Brilliancy, we recognize it as intelligence. It is the presence of pure radiance, pure brilliance. The brilliance, the radiance, is like white light that contains all the colors of the spectrum. Clear light does not manifest the prismatic colors, nor does black light. More precisely, the clarity and the blackness have all the colors in an implicit way, not explicitly. In Brilliancy, they are explicit but not differentiated, not discriminated yet. That’s why when we experience manifestation directly out of the Absolute, we always see it as a radiance, as a brilliance, as illumination.