Shabistari is saying that to understand and experience this unity, we have to experience Beingness. It is only in Beingness that we can perceive the unity. If we look at reality from the egoic perspective, we don’t see unity; we see discord, opposition, and duality. But if we experience Beingness and allow it to guide us, it will lead us to the formless dimensions and the experience that things don’t exist separately from each other. On this level, we see that separateness is not ultimately real, and that although objects may appear discrete, in reality all objects actually make up one thing. 

The essential truth helps us understand what is really happening and what exists beneath the appearance of things. A fantasy of eating ice cream is simply an image in your mind, and even real ice cream disappears or changes form after it is eaten. The love that it may evoke or reflect, however, has an intrinsic and unchanging existence, although your awareness of it may come and go. It exists as a presence that is substantive and real; it has energy, affect, and potency. If we continue pursuing the truth of the situation, the essential truth will continue to expand and reveal ever-deeper dimensions of Being until, at some point, we come in contact with the formless dimensions of Being. When we first encounter Essence, we experience it in the dimension of form, contained within us, in other words, “There is love in my heart, will in my belly, clarity in my head,” and so on. At a deeper level, the presence of Essence expands and loses its boundaries, and we realize that it is actually boundless. This is the beginning of experiencing the formless or boundless dimensions. The first formless dimension that we usually encounter, as discussed in Part Two, is that of Living Daylight: a love that is not just within you, but is every-where —pervading everything, penetrating all boundaries.

In the usual way that we teach this path, we work first with our individual consciousness, its structures and limitations and its properties of freedom and flow. In doing so, we explore the various essential qualities that are part of its nature; we see the ways in which true nature manifests itself within and through the individual consciousness. As our experience and perception become more subtle, we discover and explore the boundless or formless dimensions of true nature, moving from one dimension to another, each one adding more understanding, more realization, and more subtlety to our experience of our true nature and of reality and the world. Throughout this entire process, the self is challenged in various ways as realization continually chips away at the ego identifications. We can change from being the self to being true nature itself. In boundless or nondual realization, we know our true self as being true nature as well as being everything, being the ground and the nature of everything. 

This false pearl is actually what one is ultimately afraid of losing; it is what dissolves when one makes the transition to the formless dimensions of Being. It is a universal phenomenon; in a sense it is inherited or transmitted throughout the ages, from one generation to another in human history. It is the most universal and the deepest human conditioning. It is the condition of the overwhelming majority of humankind, ignorantly taken to be the real human element, when it is only an imitation or at best an incomplete development. 

Oscar Ichazo’s definition of Holy Truth is: “The awareness that the cosmos objectively exists now; that this existence is its own definition, and continues whether an individual understands it or not; and that the individual experiences the truth of Reality most completely when he views each moment fresh, without preconceptions about what should be happening.” Let’s break this down and see what we can understand. “The awareness that the cosmos objectively exists now.” He is saying that the totality of all that exists, on all its levels (which is what he means when he uses the word cosmos), is the nowness of experience and that this totality objectively exists. It is “its own definition,” meaning that it does not depend on our opinions about it; and “continues whether an individual understands it or not,” meaning that it actually exists whether or not we understand it. To experience reality fully, one must view “each moment fresh, without preconceptions about what should be happening,” meaning that if we are completely open and not filtering our experience of the moment through our subjectivity, we will see this unity existing right now, and that now does not refer to time, but to the immediately apprehended existence of the universe itself. So everything that is conceivable and experienceable exists right now as one. The formless dimensions, the essential states, and physical reality are not separate from each other, nor are physical objects separate from each other; there is no division anywhere—only complete unity. The alchemical concept for this is the idea of the macrocosm, the totality of the universe. 

There is as well an aspect that is specifically impersonal. When one experiences it there is no personal quality present at all. This is one of the formless dimensions of being, which is in a sense the entry into the formless realm. Its manifestation is a direct consequence of realizing the Personal Essence and understanding the personal element. The full realization of the Personal Essence brings about the longing for the impersonal. This happens when one realizes that subtle ego identifications still exist (because some dimensions of Being are not yet integrated), and one begins actually to perceive these ego structures. One realizes slowly but steadily that although there has been tremendous transformation, there is something that has not changed. It is not easy to see what it is that has not changed, although it is becoming more and more ego alien. It creates contractions in the psychophysical organism, discomfort and loss of complete identity with Being.

Generally, most people initially experience unity while experiencing one of the formless dimensions by itself. So if one is experiencing the state of unity on the level of Living Daylight alone, it would be the sense that everything is love; or if one is experiencing it on the level of the Supreme by itself, it would be the sense that everything is pure Being, pure presence. Again, this is not the experience that everything is made out of love or of Being, which is the experience of these dimensions still infused with duality; but that the whole universe is Living Daylight or is the Supreme. This is the state of unification. In any case, the level at which one experiences the unity is not relevant to the Idea of Holy Truth. The most important thing about the state of unification is that there are not two. Egoic consciousness is, by its very nature, based on division. If there is no duality in your perception, the ego is non-existent. The study of the Holy Ideas is not the study of the building blocks of ego—these are elucidated when exploring the essential aspects and the formless dimensions. Here, we are studying the principles that hold the building blocks of ego together. 

So the experience of boundlessness that arises as we move into the formless dimensions becomes the deepest level of truth that we perceive. On the level of the Supreme (the dimension of Pure Presence or Pure Being), for example, you realize that everything is a translucent Beingness. You see that it is not as though translucent Beingness is in everything or that everything exists in it, but that everything is the translucence. It is inside things, outside things, and in between them. There is no place that is not translucent Beingness. On this level of the Supreme, there is no separation between what we call appearance and reality, the form and the meaning. They are all one thing; there is a unity. The perception of this unity arises through merely seeking to understand the truth of the situation. It is not a matter of generating a particular experience; you just open your eyes to what is here. When you experience this level of truth, you not only perceive this inherent unity, but you also see that as you stay with one boundless dimension, it reveals another, deeper one. Dimensions of formless Being reveal themselves until we come to the origin and source of all dimensions, the Absolute. Initially, you might experience the Absolute as the source of everything, but as your experience matures, you realize that everything is the Absolute—there is no separation. The full experience of the Absolute is that there is nothing but the Absolute. Just as you have seen that love constitutes everything on the dimension of Living Daylight, and Being constitutes everything on the level of the Supreme, here we see that the Absolute constitutes everything. So as our understanding of the nature of reality deepens, it becomes more and more mysterious and nonconceptual, until it arrives at this dimension of the Absolute in which the nature of reality reveals itself as a profound mystery. 

So we have moved from the fact of what is happening to what truly exists within you, and from there to what truly exists beyond your body—what exists in the whole cosmos. In the boundless dimensions, Essence still has the quality of being a presence, a fullness, and a richness. As our experience deepens, the boundless dimensions keep revealing themselves in continuing depth, one after the other, as we penetrate deeper and deeper concepts within our mind, and these dimensions will lead us eventually to the deepest, innermost truth—absolute truth. This dimension of the Absolute is beyond all concepts, including that of existence or non-existence. It is not that there is a formless or boundless dimension that pervades everything or is the essence or everything, since seeing it this way creates a dichotomy that does not exist. It is not as though there is me and there is my essential nature. The formless dimensions bring in another kind of perception, which is of Being as a formless, boundless, real existence, a substantial presence that is not contained by any boundary. When you experience pure, translucent, self-existing boundless presence, you see that it is not only the fundamental nature of Essence itself, but also of everything that exists. It exists in everything, and everything exists in it. We see here that the universe is ultimately pure Being, and that this pure Being not only supports us, infuses us, and is our nature, but more fundamentally, that it constitutes us. It is completely inseparable from what we are. So it not only pervades and fills the universe, but it is the universe. This understanding that there is no universe separate from this pure boundless self-existing Beingness is a more complete level of the truth. 

It is not possible to understand completely what a human being is without understanding the relationship between the Personal Essence and the formless dimensions. The human being cannot be completely comprehended without appreciating his place in the scheme of things. And this appreciation can come about only through seeing his relationship to realms beyond form and personhood. 

Just as the personalization of the aspects of Essence leads to the synthesis of all such personalized aspects, the personalization of the various dimensions—the objective dimensions of Essence and the formless dimensions of Being—leads ultimately to the synthesis of all such personalized dimensions. This complete integration and synthesis of all aspects and dimensions into the presence of the Personal Essence, which is the same as the personalization of the Logos, makes the latter now objective in a very real sense of the word. This is the station of the objective person, who is not only complete but universal. One is a person, a personal presence, in all dimensions. The person is now the expression and embodiment of Reality, in all its aspects and dimensions. This objective realization, which is the fruit of the overall process of personalization, manifests in various ways and leads to many capacities. 

The realization of the Personal Essence, which involves the personalization of essential aspects and dimensions, leads to the complete development and objective understanding of the essential person, as we saw in the last chapter. This realization makes it possible, even easy, to move to the nonpersonal or formless realms. These realms have been called “nonpersonal,” “cosmic” or “boundless” and we will sometimes use these terms, but generally we use the term “formless dimensions,” for these reasons:

1. In these realms there are no personal or individual boundaries, so there is no sense of entity or separate existence. This is why the dissolution of ego boundaries is the primary requirement for experiencing them.
2. The experience is beyond the body, and hence the dichotomy of inside-outside is transcended, and there is freedom from the restriction of consciousness to a center in the body. Thus these dimensions are beyond form; it is the body image that gives us our personal form.
3. The experience is also beyond the person, beyond personal life and transcending personal history. Pearl pg. 419

The state of transcendence can be experienced on many dimensions, not only on the plane of Pure Being, We have seen it in all the formless dimensions of Being, But it always involves a transcendence of the body. It is not only a matter of not identifying with the body, but also of not locating one’s presence or consciousness in it. The consciousness, presence or beingness is experienced as larger than the body, usually infinite, containing the body, but never excluding it. One then knows oneself as beyond the body, transcendent to it, and of a nature that is not physical. Oneness always includes the body, but unity does not; for there is no differentiation in unity. Unity can be considered a condition of transcendence, but it is not in relation to anything, while oneness is a transcendence of the body. As a person one is not exactly the body, but one’s presence and consciousness are located within it, or more accurately, coexistent with it, and inseparable from it. However, one’s nature is still that of Being, just as in transcendence. So the person is nothing but the embodiment of Being. It is being Being but acting through the body. One is Being, in all of its dimensions and aspects, but one is living in time and space. The person is the presence of Being in the world, as a human being. 

This essentialization can include all aspects. So the soul’s action can be intelligent, compassionate, clear, steadfast, etc., in a total and full way. And this action can be physical, expressive, or mental. She is presence of essence, but also a dynamic living presence whose morphogenic transformations express the pure perfections of true nature. In this transformation the soul has progressed from the stage of the human soul, the attainment of the second journey, to the stage of the angelic soul, or the essential soul. The second side of the development of nonduality in the journey in presence has to do with essential presence manifesting its ground of true nature. Essence here reveals itself not only as the ontological nature of the soul but as the ontological nature of all existence, all manifestation. True nature begins to reveal its omnipresence, disclosing that it is the ground and nature of everything. This appears as true nature revealing its boundless and formless dimensions that transcend the limited boundaries of the ego-self, even the individuality or personhood of the soul. The soul does not experience herself here as an individual soul, but as a boundless and nonlocal presence that transcends all spatial extensions, as eternal nowness that transcends all time, and as a mystery that transcends all determinations. She is all and everything, she is Reality. 

The Diamond Approach looks at these formless realms as part of the human potential, in fact as the acme of human consciousness. But we see the idealization of these realms to the exclusion of the personal realm and of the other aspects and dimensions of Essence as a limited, even prejudiced, view. Our approach does not value or judge one realm above another; we simply observe that these formless realms become spontaneously available in the process of actualizing the human potential, thus expanding what is normally thought to be the nature of this potential. In time, these dimensions dominate the consciousness, influencing one’s experience and determining one’s view of reality. There is no need to make them an object of seeking. When the student merely lives his or her life fully, metabolizing his or her experience totally, motivated and guided by the pure love for truth, the formless dimensions manifest. The point of transition to these dimensions arrives when the Personal Essence is finally integrated and understood. No particular guidance or practice need be added. The beingness of the Personal Essence is in its very nature a bridge to these dimensions.