The beginning of these manifestations is the beginning of the journey of descent, where the virtual dimension becomes the absolute dimension. In this dimension the absolute is totally transcendent, but now explicitly transcendent to its manifestation. We clearly see this in the way the essential aspects appear. They manifest as they normally do in any of the boundless dimensions of true nature, as faceted diamonds of presence, but a presence characterized by the ontological truth of the particular dimension. In this dimension they are characterized by the truth of the absolute, beyond being and nonbeing. They manifest as delicate, faceted, colored diamonds of presence; the presence, though solid and full, is totally empty. The absolute diamonds are like diamonds of nothing, diamonds of absence. They are solid with sharp facets, yet in our experience of them they feel as if nothing is there. They are so light and empty they have no substance at all, no weight. Yet they are solid and faceted diamond-shaped presence. The experience is completely paradoxical, exactly the same as the experience of the crystal absolute. Each diamond is totally black, with no light or radiance within it, for it is made out of the medium of the absolute, which precedes light. However, each is differentiated from the other by a hint of a radiance at the surface of the diamond. In fact, the faceted surface is nothing but a glimmering, a fine and subtle shimmering that appears with a shape and color. The shape is the faceted diamond shape, and the color is that of the essential aspect.

Essential presence unfolds its subtle boundless dimensions until it finally appears as the boundless pure presence. Here the aspects appear as the concept diamonds. The concept diamonds, it turns out, specifically challenge and penetrate the reification of essential aspects. For a long time in her journey, the soul cannot help but engage in the process of reifying her experience, including her essential experience. In fact, essence first arises as if within the soul or outside her, as limited forms of presence, because it is arising in a mostly reified field. Hence, it is very difficult for the soul not to reify the essential qualities, and put them in conceptual packages. If this continues without challenge it will ultimately close the door to essential unfoldment. But the true attitude of inquiry, of loving truth for its own sake, keeps this door open, allowing essence to finally reveal its aspects in the form of concept diamonds. These, one by one, reveal the largely unconscious reification of the aspects, precipitating the soul into the realization of herself as the pure omnipresence of true nature, as we have discussed above in the example of the black peace diamond.

The various concept diamonds are the diamonds of the vehicle of the diamond guidance in the dimension of pure presence. This vehicle may appear now as the revealer of the truth of this dimension, and of Reality from the perspective of this dimension. It reveals that the dimension of pure presence is that of universal or divine mind, the mind of Being, just as the dimension of divine love is the heart of Being. It reveals what mind is, what cognition is, what thinking is, what reason is, and so on. And it reveals them on their many levels and complexities, as well as the relation between these levels.

To truly understand reification and work with reified concepts from this subtle level of understanding requires the sharp subtlety of the guidance of Being. In the Diamond Approach, this occurs with the assistance of the no-diamond guidance, whose diamonds are the concept diamonds. At this dimension of realization we understand more fully the function of diamond understanding. We see that it reveals the basic knowledge of Being because it is an essential vehicle structured by the concept diamonds, which are the original discriminated differentiations of pure presence. It is constituted by the essential concepts, the universal concepts. It thus has the capacity to reveal the most basic concepts in basic knowledge. Because it is constituted by the sharp, precise, and objective basic knowledge of the qualities of true nature, it can challenge all reifications, all the way to the reification of essential qualities.

We refer to these diamonds as “concept diamonds,” for they are actually the original concepts, the original conceptual differentiation of pure presence. We need to stress again that by concept we do not mean ordinary mental and representational concepts, which are elements of ordinary knowledge. We are discussing concepts that precede the personal discursive mind, elements of pure basic knowledge that are free from the reflection of ordinary knowledge. We also refer to them as “no-diamonds,” meaning nothing-diamonds, referring to the fact that they are discriminated differentiations of nothing and also to the fact that because they are differentiations they do not exist independently. They are empty of an independent essence, for their true essence is the boundless pure presence that is the indivisible ground and nature of everything.