The sense of confidence, certainty, meaning, preciousness, and value implicit in the presence of a state of realization is not necessarily recognized. You just don’t question; you just live life as if it is precious and has meaning. There isn’t necessarily a particular meaning you can articulate. That’s not the point. The sense of meaning is there because there is self-realization. You are there. Your very reality is present and you are it. The very reality of you, or whatever dimension of reality you are realized on at that time, is the significance, the meaning, the preciousness, and it gives everything about you and your world significance, meaning, and value. When this sense of self-realization is absent you usually experience meaninglessness and emptiness in yourself and in your life. Nothing matters, nothing is important. You don’t count. You don’t know what you want to do, nothing that you want to do is important. You don’t have any sense of what’s right or what’s not right; there is no innate sense of orientation, of direction, or of what is valuable to do. The state of self-realization is better known by its absence than by its presence. When it is absent, you feel that you don’t know who you are, you don’t seem to exist. You feel that there is nothing to you: you don’t matter, you aren’t important. You feel insignificant, your life feels insignificant, you don’t even know what you want to do. You wonder why you should even live. A person can become suicidal at this point. Why live? You feel that there is no point in living. In the absence of self-realization you feel a sense of hopelessness about yourself, your life and all of existence.

So the teaching is happening in every way that experience appears. As you may have noticed, when you are inquiring, you discover at some point the meaning of what you are experiencing. Everything has meaning, and meaning is always there. Nothing is haphazard. Everything has a precise order. That is why I tend to agree with Einstein that reality is not probability, that God doesn't throw dice. Everything has a precise order, every single little thing has a meaning in the order of things—and all of it is revealing the truth of reality.

Meaning is not something we can get to with our minds; it is not an answer found in the mind. It is not an ideal or an image we're fulfilling. It is not a result of anything. It is just falling into one's nature. To be able to simply fall into one's nature, is, however, not easy. It is the most difficult thing there is. It takes perseverance, patience, sincerity, and compassion for oneself. And it may take a long time.

What is meaning, in this case, and how does it relate to understanding? Meaning is nothing but the recognition of the structure and pattern of our experience. Meaning is not a word, it is a discernment of what an experience is. When meaning pervades experience, it transforms it into understanding. In the Diamond Dimension, all the aspects—Compassion, Intelligence, Will, Truth, Joy, Peace, Identity, and so on—arise in the diamond form. This means that each aspect of Essence will arise as understanding or, more precisely, as inseparable from understanding. Will, for example, arises as a new patterning of our experience in which the meaning of Will is already clear in the experience itself. Thus Will arises as essential wisdom.

The ego personality deals with the loss of a sense of meaning by creating a sense of meaning. As we have seen, the usual personality or ego way of trying to create meaning is by having goals and aims that you will attain one of these days. The meaning of your life becomes the attainment of those goals. For most people life has meaning only in terms of these long-term goals and hopes. Ego's way of dealing with the loss or absence of realization is too relegate it to the future.

The sense of confidence, certainty, meaning, preciousness, and value implicit in the presence of a state of realization is not necessarily recognized. You just don’t question; you just live life as if it is precious and has meaning. There isn’t necessarily a particular meaning you can articulate. That’s not the point. The sense of meaning is there because there is self-realization. You are there. Your very reality is present and you are it. The very reality of you, or whatever dimension of reality you are realized on at that time, is the significance, the meaning, the preciousness, and it gives everything about you and your world significance, meaning, and value. When this sense of self-realization is absent you usually experience meaninglessness and emptiness in yourself and in your life. Nothing matters, nothing is important. You don’t count. You don’t know what you want to do, nothing that you want to do is important. You don’t have any sense of what’s right or what’s not right; there is no innate sense of orientation, of direction, or of what is valuable to do. The state of self-realization is better known by its absence than by its presence. When it is absent, you feel that you don’t know who you are, you don’t seem to exist. You feel that there is nothing to you: you don’t matter, you aren’t important. You feel insignificant, your life feels insignificant, you don’t even know what you want to do. You wonder why you should even live. A person can become suicidal at this point. Why live? You feel that there is no point in living. In the absence of self-realization you feel a sense of hopelessness about yourself, your life and all of existence. 

At the stage of recognizing true nature, the soul realizes that it is the ultimate meaning of existence and of life. She understands that when she is not in touch with her true nature her mind thinks of it as absence of meaning, which she then tries to find, pursuing a particular style of life, philosophy, activity, or interest. As she realizes her essence she finds that the need for conceptual meaning disappears. She finds that meaning is being, the fact of her existence. But at the stage when the soul moves to the nonconceptual, even being is gone, for being and nonbeing are both conceptual. She may first see this as meaninglessness, as the sense that life has no meaning. Meaninglessness becomes the true condition of things, for any meaning is simply a story the discriminating mind concocts. But precise inquiry into this meaninglessness reveals it to be simply the transcendence of the concept of meaning. Meaning requires recognition, cognition, and now we are simply beyond that. Reality is simply thus, pure awareness without commentary. In other words, to see Reality as ultimately meaninglessness, even when this is idealized as total freedom, is to still view it within the concept of meaning. Reality is neither meaningfulness nor meaninglessness, neither the presence of these nor their absence. It is simply independent of anything that the discriminating mind can grasp. So when we use the term meaningless to refer to nonconceptual Reality we need to realize we are referring to the transcendence of meaning, not the opposite of meaningfulness. 

When you know yourself, when you realize your true identity, the meaning of life does not come to you in the form of a conceptual answer to a question. It is not an answer in your mind. It is you. The Presence, fullness, and intrinsic preciousness is directly experienced; it is not in reference to anything else. It is complete autonomy; only the experience itself can give a taste of this satisfaction. This experience of self-realization is the answer, in the sense that it ends the drive. It is true absence of seeking. 

So as you see, there is always a continuity of meaning for each of us, if we’re really practicing being where we are. This continuity of meaning I call the personal thread. A lot is happening in the universe. The universe itself is flowing and moving and changing, and everybody and everything that comprises it is moving and changing as well. Within that shared reality, each one of us is having our own personal experience in terms of where we are—our personal thread. Recognizing our personal experience, being with it, feeling it with immediacy and awareness and understanding—brings not only meaning but a thread of meaning, a continuity of meaning. And this thread of meaning is our own individual unfolding journey of truth.

Ultimately, the desire for meaning and significance is a search for identity. Our activities are meant to give us a sense of who we are. "What gives me significance?" When we explore this we find that it has something to do with a sense of self. "Who am I?"

At the stage of recognizing true nature, the soul realizes that it is the ultimate meaning of existence and of life. She understands that when she is not in touch with her true nature her mind thinks of it as absence of meaning, which she then tries to find, pursuing a particular style of life, philosophy, activity, or interest. As she realizes her essence she finds that the need for conceptual meaning disappears. She finds that meaning is being, the fact of her existence. But at the stage when the soul moves to the nonconceptual, even being is gone, for being and nonbeing are both conceptual. She may first see this as meaninglessness, as the sense that life has no meaning. Meaninglessness becomes the true condition of things, for any meaning is simply a story the discriminating mind concocts. But precise inquiry into this meaninglessness reveals it to be simply the transcendence of the concept of meaning. Meaning requires recognition, cognition, and now we are simply beyond that. Reality is simply thus, pure awareness without commentary. In other words, to see Reality as ultimately meaninglessness, even when this is idealized as total freedom, is to still view it within the concept of meaning. Reality is neither meaningfulness nor meaninglessness, neither the presence of these nor their absence. It is simply independent of anything that the discriminating mind can grasp. So when we use the term meaningless to refer to nonconceptual Reality we need to realize we are referring to the transcendence of meaning, not the opposite of meaningfulness.

I am focusing on the word “meaning” because I think it will help us better understand what it means to be where we are. In the condition of realization, the meaning we are experiencing is not the conceptual meaning; it is the very presence of reality. When we experience it, it is the meaning of existence. It is meaningful to the soul and to the heart. Or we could say: The soul and the heart feel that existence is meaningful. Existence got meaning. What’s the meaning it got? True Nature.

Whether it was due to doubt, lack of faith, contrary beliefs, insufficient or distorted parental guidance, fear of surrender, or attachment to worldly rewards, most of us have lived our life without the benefit of true guidance. This has meant being cut off from our soul’s depth. We have lived with a diminished potential for discrimination, knowledge, and understanding of the experiences and qualities in our life that touch us most deeply. We have lived in a world devoid of true meaning, using only our mind to make connections and draw conclusions about how best to proceed. Consciously or not, we have looked outside ourselves for teachers, friends, and guides to support us in navigating our life journey, not realizing that the true source of all these functions exists in our own nature.

When you know yourself, when you realize your true identity, the meaning of life does not come to you in the form of a conceptual answer to a question. It is not an answer in your mind. It is you. The Presence, fullness, and intrinsic preciousness is directly experienced; it is not in reference to anything else. It is complete autonomy; only the experience itself can give a taste of this satisfaction. This experience of self-realization is the answer, in the sense that it ends the drive. It is true absence of seeking.

Whatever arises is the manifestation of Being and always has a meaning, whether it is distorted and constrained or free and open. The distortions, including emotional pain and difficulties, are nothing but the presentations of the dynamism of Being happening through the filter of our ordinary knowledge. Fixed beliefs, attitudes, and positions, mostly based on ego structures and defenses, impede and distort the flow. What you end up with is a painful, constricted, and dark repetition of old knowledge. What inquiry does is activate and invoke the optimizing thrust of the dynamism, inviting Being to exhibit its hidden richness. Inquiring opens up our knowledge by challenging it, questioning it, understanding it, and this happens by seeing the truth that transforms, rejuvenates, and deepens our experience. By understanding the distortions, we can see and get to what Being is trying to unfold. At some point, that unfoldment will appear in pure manifestations—the direct, unobscured experience of true nature. Such an experience of true nature transforms our direct knowledge, taking it to new and fresh dimensions. So the transformation of our experience is the transformation of our knowledge.

As we learn more and more how to be where we are, and as we follow our personal thread, at some point the meaning of what is happening at any moment becomes nonconceptual. We are in the presence—we are presence—without the concept of presence; we are being here without thinking, “I am here.” Now that is not to be confused with being distracted. You can be “not here,” in the sense of being disconnected, and if someone points it out to you, you will recognize that you were somewhere far away. What I am talking about here is when you are quite aware of what is going on, but you are not self-reflecting in that place, not discriminating. And it is not that you don’t have the capacity to discriminate; it is just that sometimes it is not necessary to do so. In the presence of that ground of nonconceptual being, reification simply does not happen; it actually can’t happen because reification requires some kind of cognition. Any knowingness—even immediate knowingness, such as when we know the strength quality of presence by being it—has a conceptual component to it. But the strength essence can also appear without the cognitive capacity labeling it. The strength and the feeling of capacity and the inner heat are there, but your mind is not saying, “strength,” “capacity” or “heat.” Your mind is not saying anything. You just are strength. And, it is not lifeless or pale; it is alive, and it is glistening.

In the dimensions of Essence there are experiences of self-realization in which meaning is based on the presence of the realized state in the present moment, rather than being based on the future. This eliminates the dependency on the future. Goals and aims become less and less important. In other words, the aim becomes the present moment, and the present moment is its own significance, is its own preciousness. The present moment is not different from the self-realization, which is not different from the self that is realized, which is not different from the reality that is precious.