The quintessential dimension stands at the opposite pole from the absolute dimension. The latter shows the absolute to be completely transcendent to manifestation, while the quintessence shows it to be fully immanent. It is so implicit in manifestation that it has no distance from it. Whenever we look at manifestation we see the absolute right there, underlying it, grounding it, coemergent with it, inseparable from it, even undifferentiated from it. All thedimensions of the journey of descent reveal the absolute to be immanent in manifestation, but the quintessential divulges perfect and complete immanence. The manifest world is the crystal radiance of the absolute that is perfectly coemergent with its emptiness, with no distance to separate them. Yet it leaves transcendence untouched; for even though the world is inseparable from the absolute, it cannot and does not contaminate its simplicity and emptiness. The absolute remains in its absolute purity, unmixed and undefiled, even though it is completely mixed with manifestation. This is similar to the situation of mixing dirt with water. The water appears dirty and murky, but it does not lose its nature at all; for it is always H2O, regardless ofthe mixing. The quintessence is the complete immanence of the absolute, yet it is transcendence. We can say that in the quintessence transcendence and immanence meet. Or alternately, the concepts of transcendence and immanence lose their differentiating boundaries at the culmination of the journey of descent.

Regardless which view we take of the experience of cessation, and of the knowability of true nature in its absolute transcendence, we need to remember that true nature is essentially indeterminable. Nevertheless, the more completely and absolutely we know true nature, the more we are enlightened and liberated. We need to know it because it is our nature and the nature of everything, and it is a deep need and desire of the soul to intimately understand and live this nature. Most of the soul’s experience and realization is bound to be in the domain of immanent true nature, realized as the essence and true nature of everything. The self-realization that we can live is not that of cessation, but of the nonduality of true nature and manifestation. True nature is indeterminable even in such immanence.

As a part of life and earthly existence, we also value relationships and are interested in being able to be with another in a way that expresses the preciousness of Being. But if we continue to relate in our usual patterns and habits, expecting to experience divine eros, we will find ourselves in an exercise of frustration. The marriage of heaven and earth is the experience of knowing who we are as being both beyond time and within the world. Our ordinary sense of self has no such capacity. Only the truth of our nature can encompass the transcendent and the immanent. This nature is what is real. To be real means that we need to be able to live in a way that reflects the reality of what we truly are. It is important to recognize, however, that being real doesn’t happen in a moment. Learning what it means to be a real person is a process of unfoldment and transformation. It is not something you fall into or recognize all of a sudden, as it sometimes can be in the discovery of or awakening to true nature. It is a maturational process. And it begins with being honest, truthful, and real about where you are and investigating that. Every moment holds the possibility of more realness and more in-touchness with the presence of essential Being.

There are amazing and beautiful perceptions on this dimension (Ed: ie Absolute Dimension), and great knowledge and timeless wisdom; for it is the wisdom of transcendence. But the soul feels mainly a sense of unfettered liberation and lighthearted spontaneity. The self-realization of this dimension can lead to the arising of other dimensions of descent; for this realization is the beginning of the journey of descent, the process of realizing manifestation and one’s relation to manifestation. The descent is a movement toward greater and more complete immanence, experienced as coemergence and wholeness; in the process, several transitional dimensions arise. These dimensions reveal further objective relationships that the absolute inherently and eternally possesses in relation to manifestation. The dimensions that arise at this point also demonstrate the degrees of integration of manifest reality, and hence of descent into our familiar world.

We have been exploring the pattern of the logos, the order immanent in manifest reality, seeing how it is the ground and basis of rationality, reason, thinking, speaking, and language. But how does this order appear in experience, and what are the qualities of such experience? Such experience is the principal realization of the dimension of the logos, for it is the direct experience of the logos. We feel a sense of presence and fullness, at the same time that we are aware of powerful dynamism and the sense of flow. The full presence is boundless, infinite, and at the same time luminous and alive. It is a conscious presence where awareness and the fullness of presence are inseparable, making up one unified field of consciousness. We experience all of the world of perception as the forms that this presence assumes at various regions of its expanse. All forms and objects are nothing but the field of presence itself, but with differentiating colors, shapes, and qualities. At the same time we perceive the sense of flow as the flowing out of all of these forms, not from one place to another, but from depth to surface, and more accurately, from nonmanifestation to manifestation. We directly feel the whole infinite field as a fluid fabric, flowing at all points of its expanse. We perceive the flowing as the changes and movements of the various forms in the field of perception. In other words, the flow is not only of the existentiating outflow of the medium of the logos, but also of the progress of all phenomena.

The soul has gaps in it when it experiences itself as the personality of ego. Gaps are the holes and deficiencies that are the absences of realization of the fullness of Essence in the soul. So, one of the specific ways that completeness is recognized is in the feeling that there is no gap, which I usually call the state of no gap. When Brilliancy is fully integrated with the soul, all of the perfections of Being are present in an immanent and clear way. And then there are no gaps, no holes in the soul, because Brilliancy is a self-existing synthesis of all aspects. The experience is that I am complete in such a way that nothing else is required. And the completeness is experienced in such an intrinsic and full way that just being here—the presence on its own—is 100 percent self-sufficient and complete; nothing needs to be taken away, to be added, to happen, or to stop happening. The sense of completeness is absolute, while being recognized and delineated in a clear and explicit manner.