1. A Protective Shield Over the Heart

A part of the shell at the left side of the body transforms, becoming shiny black obsidian. This transformation is breathtaking but brief. The hardness of the obsidian is quickly covered over with a soft sheath, and there appears a physical contraction at the familiar place of the ego line and around the left shoulder. As the experience develops a solid hardness appears over the heart area, like a large pebble. It seems separate from everything else in my awareness. I can see that the separateness is connected with the physical tension, which makes the pebble feel like a blockage. It strikes me that the pebble is a protective shield over the heart. For a few mornings, upon waking up, I begin the day with no awareness of the pebble. There is only a slightly soft and cushiony sensation at the ego line, sometimes at the spleen. I recognize it as a mild manifestation of the falsehood of the personality, giving me the sense of being a person who can interact with other persons. The dominant state, however, is openness and spaciousness. At some point during the day, the pebble makes its appearance at the left side of the chest. By the end of the day it moves to the center of the body, finally situating itself at the subtle center of the mobius, and a certain emotional state manifests. The arising emotional state is still obscure and vague, difficult to pin down. This process repeats itself for a few days, regardless of the events in my life. I am usually working during the day, and come back home by evening. The vague emotional state is most present and intense at night, when I have time to be alone in my contemplation. Luminous Night's Journey, pg. 34

2. Painful Feeling of Frustration

The emotional state deepens, transforming to something more complex. Now I feel a slight sadness, a strange gloom and a depressed quality. I am aware of the soft cushiony sensation of the false personality, and a painful feeling of frustration, right at the left side, under the pebble. These feelings reveal themselves to be a consequence of a deep inner conflict. I do not want to displease anyone. I do not want to be a cause of pain to the people I care for. At the same time, I deeply value and want to be myself, whatever this happens to be. I love to simply be, with the freedom, profundity and exquisiteness of the state of simply being. So there is sadness and hurt both ways, for myself and for the others. No wonder there is frustration in the experience. The sadness becomes mixed with the warmth of loving kindness, but some frustration remains. Luminous Night's Journey, pg. 36

3. Movement of the Pebble

The next day . . . The awareness is mostly lightness, space and lack of concern. When curiosity arises about what happened to the hardness, I become aware of the left side of the chest feeling like a big hard pebble, covered with a soft film. The pebble is bigger and moves quickly to the center of the body, with a deeper sadness that now pervades the consciousness. By evening the sadness transforms to a much more intense state, which is not exactly an emotion. It is an unconditioned state of consciousness, an aspect of Essence I am not very familiar with. It is not exactly sadness, not exactly heaviness, not exactly compassion, not exactly pity, but something similar to these more familiar feeling states. The state seems to be more of an intense and deep sorrow. I do not feel sorrowful, exactly; I am rather aware of the presence of sorrow. As the consciousness opens up, it manifests a deeply golden brown liquid presence, characterized by a profound depth and an intense warmth. Yet, the affect is unmistakably a real, objective sorrow, consuming in some new way. The inevitable question fills my consciousness: Sorrow about what? Concerning what? Not clear.

This night, it happens that my friend Karen is visiting me, and as usual on these occasions, we discuss the latest in our discoveries. I describe to her my observations in the last few days. When I describe my present state of poignant sorrow, which has by now been eclipsed by awareness of the pebble, she sees that the pebble looks like a black diamond-like presence, with a layer of brilliant radiance covering it. I cannot at this point see the blackness of the presence, but I can feel that the hardness has a sense of lightness mixed with the sorrow. Luminous Night's Journey, pg. 37

4. Depths of the Pebble

The next day . . . Upon waking up this morning, I sense that the whole body is pervaded with the hardness. The consciousness now has become the pebble, indicating the cessation of resistance against it. As I realize this my vision opens up, and a flash of seeing brings me into the depths of the pebble. I see a dazzling blackness, beautiful beyond description. I behold my presence as so deep it is black. It is so black, so pure in its blackness, that it is beautifully dazzling. It is not like the black aspect of essence, which is dazzling because it is luminous from within. This is not luminous from within. It is black through and through. It is so sable black it is brilliant. However, its brilliance is not white or golden, as usual with the luminosity of other manifestations of Being. Its brilliance itself is black. It is so absolutely black it radiates black luminosity. The presence continues to be hard, and sometimes feels harder than anything else I have experienced. It has the form of a faceted jewel, like an obsidian diamond. This gives the hard presence a texture of sharpness and precision. Yet it is deep and totally empty, not only perceptually, but also in terms of its feeling. This manifestation of Being makes no sense to the ordinary mind; it is like a faceted voidness, which feels within it as an endless still depth of black transparency. I remember what Karen said she saw the night before, and as I feel my deep valuing of her, the obsidian diamond acquires a softness, a pliancy at its faceted surface. I perceive the softness as the pearlescent substance that indicates personalness. The obscured softness of the false personality is gone, and in its place the pliable, authentic fullness of the personal essence has appeared. I am the total blackness of the depths of Being, beyond all existence, and yet I can be personal. Luminous Night’s Journey, pg. 39

5. Beginning of the Manifestation of the Absolute

It seems that the black pebble at the left side that I spoke about in Chapter Four was the beginning of the manifestation of the absolute. I remember seeing its connection to the death of the world. That was before the discovery of the dimensions of pure Being and the nonconceptual presence as the underlying nature of the world. I understood the question of annihilation when the black pebble became a faceted diamond. Now I see that the absolute is crystalline annihilation, which is the absolute ground of everything.

A few days later. . . As Being continues to manifest as its absolute nature, I begin to understand how functioning and doing happen. Whatever I do, I do with total lack of self consciousness. There is absolutely no premeditation. The action and the awareness of the action happen simultaneously, inseparably. Taking the action and the perception of taking the action are the same experience. I recognize this as spontaneous functioning. When functioning occurs without self-consciousness it is completely spontaneous. The feeling is that the spontaneity is the self, which is the vast blackness. The functioning spontaneously arises out of me, with no self-consciousness, without it ever becoming other than me. I am the source, the black crystalline source of spontaneous action. This is difficult to describe. I am not only the source, but also the spontaneous and non-self-conscious functioning. The universe is the spontaneous arising in me, without becoming other than me. Luminous Night’s Journey, pg. 63