Inquiry into this surprising reaction to the arising of boundless divine love reveals that the soul is identified with a specific demonic form. The soul actually begins to feel as if she has hooves, horns, a tail, and burning red eyes. The soul assumes the form of the devil, just as it is popularly known. One may at this point experience oneself as a huge and powerful presence, in the shape of a black devil intent on opposing and destroying everything good and beautiful in existence. It is not easy to acknowledge and experience oneself as an all bad destructive force, which accounts for the issues of splitting that are associated with hatred and how it is the distortion of the power of Being. The important point for us here is that the emergence of true nature in the boundless love dimension activates this powerful hatred toward the very goodness of the divine. It becomes personified in the figure of the devil, but the process of its working through takes us to its genesis in early frustration that appears in the soul in the form of a furry jackal. 

The quality that arises to help us in our awakening is boundless love. It takes us from the individual level of spirituality to the boundless and nondual realms. We can say it is the beginning and, in fact, the best entrance into nondual realization. Because it is a ground of nondual presence, it is, in some sense, the source of all qualities and diamond vehicles. When we experience this nondual dimension, we experience everything, including the relative level of experience and essential qualities, as made out of love.

She now sees the way out of the dilemma of boundaries: actual merging with the divine and losing the sense of individual experience. Essence becomes clearer, more lucid, and very graceful. The soul becomes a drop of grace, of full and substantial presence, but utterly free and fulfilled. A great deal of understanding may unveil at this juncture, especially if the diamond guidance has already been integrated and now functions on the dimension of divine love. Its graceful presence attains a soft and divine quality; its faceted diamonds become more fluid and softly glowing. The boundless love is not like someone loving something. It is more of a full and rich presence, softly and delicately textured, with a heavenly affect, sweet but wonderful, uplifting but totally pure and selfless. It bathes all forms, infusing everything with the most sublime love, and blessing appearance with the garb of divinity. 

And when I say that this boundless essence is everywhere and doesn’t come from the body, remember this doesn’t mean the body should be seen as something negative, something you need to reject or transcend. It’s not like that. We’ve already seen that because this boundless love or presence is everywhere, it is the essence of everything. It’s the nature of all physical reality, so that includes the body. If you’ve only experienced essence as something in your physical body, then you still don’t know the true nature of the body—you’re still thinking of your body biologically and you don’t know it spiritually yet. When you get to the boundless dimensions and see that your body is made out of your essence, and everything is made of essence, then you know that essence is not just something you feel inside your body. It’s only the limitation of our understanding that makes us see essence as something that’s inside us, or as something we haven’t got inside us and need to get from someplace else.

This love is not like the essential quality of merging gold love that Twos idealize. The merging gold love is more relational and more relevant for connection, unity, and sharing, as well as community and intimacy. This love feels different, with a different texture and taste, a different color and function. Yet both are love. In some sense, boundless love is more fundamental than merging gold love. It is the sea of love that differentiates itself into many kinds of love that are relevant for human beings and their lives. Before we encounter the nondual way of experiencing this quality, it appears as a pervasive loving light, as the delicate presence of a love that is not separate from consciousness. We feel held or bathed by a softness all around us that infuses the whole atmosphere. We feel soothed, comforted, and trusting, making it easy to relax and let go. When this quality is present in our consciousness, the sense of ease and relaxation feels completely natural.

And as you experience the wisdom vehicles and the nondual dimensions, your view continues to expand. Boundless love makes you realize that love oozes from everything, that love is the ground that manifests and bathes reality. Your whole view of humanity, of human beings, of your own history, of your perspective about reality and what is important, shifts in a dramatic way. And then, when you discover the dimension of pure awareness, you see that everything is awareness, that awareness is fundamental to existence and to all of us. Your view changes again, and the view that awareness is the primordial nature of everything dominates your experience. Then you discover emptiness. If you realize what I refer to as the absolute, you understand emptiness and realize that there is no awareness without emptiness. Without emptiness, awareness would be as dense as concrete; but because of emptiness, awareness has no impediment, has nothing in its way. Emptiness is what gives awareness its transparency. When you recognize that emptiness liberates awareness from all its impediments, your view changes again. You feel that if you don’t see and experience the emptiness of everything, you are not only missing out, you are also not truly free.  

The dimensions of both the Impersonal Witness and the Cosmic Consciousness, although nonpersonal and formless, are still differentiated aspects of Being. All the essential aspects we have discussed so far are differentiated, discernible Platonic forms. Love is definitely love, completely delineated, as are Will, Compassion and so on. The Impersonal Witness is singularly impersonal. The Cosmic Presence is very clearly a consciousness that is boundless love, a loving conscious light. The realization of the various differentiated aspects of Being leaves the door open to the manifestation of pure Being, nondifferentiated presence. Manifestation and realization of this basic and supreme aspect is a long and difficult one, but it is a natural process that spontaneously occurs at some point of personal development. We will discuss this supreme aspect of Being only enough to explore its relationship to the Personal Essence.

At this deepest level, everything in the universe is seen to be originating in, bathed in, and constituted by, Living Daylight. This quality is called by many different names in different spiritual traditions. It is called divine love, conscious presence, universal love, Christ consciousness, or Christ love. In the Hindu tradition, it is called satchitananda, which expresses the experiential qualities of this aspect of Being. Sat means presence or truth, chit means consciousness or awareness, and ananda means bliss, pleasure, or love. These three qualities are the experiences of Living Daylight in each of the three centers. When it is experienced through the mind, it is experienced as light and consciousness. When it is experienced through the heart, it is experienced as universal boundless love. When it is experienced through the belly, it is experienced as a pervading conscious presence. When you feel it in the belly, you feel that you are held, contained, enfolded by a loving presence, and that this presence is what really exists in the world. 

Some people experience boundless love as arising within them,  as loving light, as a softness that is a delicate presence. It feels like  a golden white presence, soft and sweet, but not as intensely sweet as merging love. When it arises within, it is relaxing and brings an inner ease and a settling of mind and consciousness. While we experience it as love, we see it as light, a field of yellowish-white light, a delicate presence with a soft, delicate substantiality. In that quality of light, we recognize it is conscious of itself—pure consciousness that is awake and conscious of its nature. Others first experience it as arising around them in the environment. It bathes them, holds, caresses, and soothes them, as if a tender loving hand is touching them in a way that makes them feel love is present. This evokes a profound sense of holding that makes it easy for them to relax and surrender. Of course, others can experience this love-consciousness as both inside and outside, permeating and suffusing everything. When we are still experiencing ourselves as autonomous individuals, boundless love feels boundless and pervasive but not yet the nature of everything. It is similar to how most people experience inner space at the beginning of the inner journey; like physical space, it is everywhere, yet it is also separate from everything.

The love which is the first emanation from the supreme reality is Christ love, or boundless love. It is like a boundless heart, a heart with no barriers, no boundaries, no defenses. Heart with no boundaries at all is boundless love. There are no boundaries at all, no barriers at all, no defenses at all. So you are completely vulnerable. This is why love, completely divine, universal Christ love brings the greatest vulnerability: when you experience it, you are at the maximum of vulnerability before you feel yourself as invulnerable. You have to open yourself to that level before you can be invulnerable. And you can’t do it by saying, “I’m doing this so I will become invulnerable.” That very thought is a barrier. You have to be vulnerable with no defenses, without even the thought of a defense. One way I see our situation is that creation or the universe is like a tree. Love is the flowers of the tree, and the human being is the final fruit of the tree, the final fruit of creation. The thick nectar of the ripe fruit is gratitude. Gratitude for how things are, gratitude for being vulnerable, gratitude that you can be completely influenceable. Gratitude for being human. 

Of course, others can experience this love-consciousness as both inside and outside, permeating and suffusing everything. When we are still experiencing ourselves as autonomous individuals, boundless love feels boundless and pervasive but not yet the nature of everything. It is similar to how most people experience inner space at the beginning of the inner journey; like physical space, it is everywhere, yet it is also separate from everything. The deeper experience of this quality of consciousness takes us to a boundless condition. The love is pervasive and boundless as stated, but now it penetrates everything so explicitly that nothing is outside of it. This makes us feel that, since it fills everything to its deepest and furthest regions, it is not separate from any part of reality. We feel a medium—an expansive, infinite continuum of consciousness and love—that not only bathes, holds, and fills us but is our very nature. It is what we are, whether we are experiencing ourselves as body or soul. Therefore, we recognize this love and consciousness not only as a quality that arises locally but also as infinite, without boundaries—hence, we refer to it as a boundless dimension. Its absence of boundaries means that not even our skin or our atoms can bound it or keep it out; nothing keeps it out. It penetrates everything so thoroughly that everything is made of it. Thus we have arrived at divine love, which is the source or origin of the quality of loving light or boundless love as experienced by the individual soul.