Student: I thought essence was the one thing that really existed.

Almaas: Yes, this is true, but there is what we call the secret or mystery of essence, which is ultimately who you truly are. Knowing the deepest mystery of true nature is a matter of shedding subtler layers of mind. When Essence is reflecting on itself it is not just Essence by itself; there is a mind there. Essence manifests in many dimensions of increasing subtlety. When mind is completely shed, self-reflection ceases. 

She recognizes that her inner journey to the absolute has been a journey of ascent, of moving from the lowest and grossest dimensions of experience to the summit of subtlety and truth. In this journey of ascent, the process has been primarily that of discrimination, separation, purification, and resolution. Her nature reveals itself as simpler, more subtle, and increasingly devoid of forms, qualities, determinations, and concepts. The journey moves toward absolute simplicity, through a process of continual shedding. All forms and dimensions are shed, to reveal the perfect simplicity and emptiness of the absolute. Absolute simplicity turns out to be absolute transcendence, the transcendence of all forms and dimensions of manifestation. Her journey has taken her deeper and deeper, steadily leaving behind more superficial dimensions, until she has arrived at the absolute depth of all experience, as the dimension of depth itself, which is simultaneously the transcendent summit of all dimensions and manifest forms. 

The more we drop our attachments and abandon our inner idols, the more we are filled with grief and loss and sadness. The whole universe will turn into an ocean of tears. As our heart empties itself of its idols, it sacrifices too its yearning and its longing, and even its love. You don’t feel you long anymore. You don’t even feel that you love anymore. There remains only the direct condition of being consumed by an ocean of hot tears. This is some taste of nearness of the Guest, but we experience it for a long time as the grief over the loss of all the things we are shedding and sacrificing. We willingly sacrifice everything, but we cannot help but feel such deep sadness and tears. However, this again is another story the mind tells us, trying to explain something it does not and cannot comprehend. The mind cannot see that it is the Secret drawing nearer and beginning to melt us, to dissolve us. We can say that it is the heart passionately longing for and loving the Secret. But we can also say it is the Secret touching you, completely and passionately burning you up. For a long time you do your work from the outside, by seeing the distractions and letting them go. As that happens, it is as if the Secret, as if the Guest, is coming closer. The nearness of the Secret is not like the closeness of any other lover you’ve ever experienced. The Secret will burn you up from within, will incinerate you. It will boil you to total evaporation through passionate heat. This Secret, the ultimate Beloved, is not like any other lover. It will not appear in the heart, it will not come to its abode, as long as there is anyone else there. As long as you have another lover, it won’t arrive. The true Beloved is the most jealous of all lovers; it is absolutely possessive. It either has you completely or it will not even bother to show up. 

Inner realization is a process of shedding, of losing what one takes oneself to be, to ultimately become what one is, without need for any external support, not even one’s mind. This description is not metaphorical; one actually experiences the disappearance of great realms of one’s identity. As one goes deeper and deeper, one realizes that one is shedding concepts that one had taken to be absolute truths. The shedding of all concepts is the realization of the Nonconceptual Nameless Reality, what is. Nothing can be said to describe it because one can only use concepts to describe. Yet the shedding is still not absolute. It is true that all concepts are gone, but there remains one more thing—consciousness itself. The nature of the Nameless is pure consciousness, consciousness that is conscious of consciousness, without labeling or knowing anything. There is consciousness, but there is no knowing of what is known, or what knows; there are no conceptual categories. Huang Po says: “. . . you would find it formless, occupying no point in space and falling neither into the category of existence nor into that of non-existence.” [Translated by John Blofeld, The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, p. 87]

Even consciousness, which is not exactly a concept, can be shed. At some point, usually without anticipating it, one realizes that one is perceiving the Nameless Reality as external to oneself. One becomes aware that one is beyond the Nameless, and the world that it supports, as an unknowable mystery. The Nonconceptual Reality, which is the ground of the world of concepts, is experienced here as not absolutely real. In fact, it is experienced as a radiance, ephemeral and insubstantial, in relation to and emanating from an unfathomable Absolute. One realizes that one’s most absolute nature, which turns out to be the underlying nature of all of existence, transcends not only the mind, but consciousness itself.

Intelligence is also organic because it is creative. The computer cannot create something original; its creations are already implied in its programming, no matter how complex and adaptive the programming may be. The computer’s creations are nothing but the elaborations and combinations of what is already in its memory. A computer can never be original. But intelligence has the characteristic of being creative in a completely original way. Intelligence always has the capacity of shedding more light. It is always capable of being more intelligent; it is always capable of taking a more intelligent direction, of making a more intelligent observation. This is because real intelligence is alive, and that’s what differentiates it from a nonliving thing like a computer. Natural intelligence doesn’t have any limit; the maximization of functioning can go on and on infinitely because it comes from a living, organic place that is constantly creating, emerging, flowing. It is the flow itself that is the functioning of intelligence. I hope this explains what I mean when I say that intelligence has an organic characteristic.

Space made dull and dark by the obscuring effect of ignorance is deficient emptiness. In other words, deficient emptiness is nothing but space experienced through the filter of ignorance (which is composed of images from the past taken to define oneself, accompanied by wrong beliefs and emotions associated with the images). This explains why when the deficient emptiness is experienced it transforms into space as soon as the wrong beliefs and their accompanying emotions are seen and understood. Of course, the ignorance has in it, connected to it, the memories of the original childhood experiences that led to the various self-images. Psychodynamic understanding removes the dullness and darkness of ignorance by shedding light on its specific content. This brings about the clarity of understanding, which dissipates the ignorance and reveals the true nature of the deficient emptiness which is immaculate space. This argument shows that deficient emptiness is nothing but space obscured by ignorance and falsehood. It is difficult to give a more precise discussion of this point, because we are dealing with the interface of two kinds of realities: the ontological nature of the mind, and its content. However, our discussion is based on the direct experience and observation of the phenomena involved in the transition from deficient emptiness to space. We notice that as the understanding of the beliefs and affects associated with the deficient emptiness becomes clearer and more precise, the deficient emptiness slowly and gradually lights up, lightens up, and becomes clearer and more spacious. 

Maturing is living according to the wisdom gained from regression, which is more of a shedding of accumulated concepts about reality. Shall I repeat it? If you have learned from the regression, and that is incorporated in the way you live, that is maturity. Maturity is connected with wisdom, and wisdom is connected with the integration of what you have learned and what you have experienced. If you have not integrated what you learned from experience, then there is no wisdom. When experience is integrated, it becomes wisdom; wisdom is living according to what you have learned. When you live according to what you have learned, you are mature. 

Fulfillment, which is simply the absence of the lack of fulfillment, arises through denuding yourself, baring yourself, becoming more and more naked. It’s a matter of letting go of the things you’ve been trying to fill yourself with, of shedding the unreal, until you’re so simple that you’re simplicity itself. Your mind can’t even think about you. You’re not complicated enough to think about you, to reflect on yourself in the way you’ve been used to. The mind doesn’t know what to do about this simplicity. It can’t categorize or analyze it. People usually come to the Work feeling that they have a lot of gaps and holes it will help them fill. While the Work will not fill these gaps, it can show you that you’re trying to work on something that is not you and thinking it is, that if you see rightly, you will see that you don’t have gaps, you don’t have holes. It’s not necessarily an easy process. The mind and personality have accumulated many inaccurate beliefs, preconceptions and presuppositions. You could say that the Work is a process of education or re-education, though not in the traditional sense, since it is a shedding, rather than an accumulation. You are learning to be simple, and that simplicity is the completeness. 

In the journey of ascent, the individual soul penetrates the various dimensions of creation and manifestation, which are the garments in which the absolute was hidden. The journey of descent, however, is the conscious donning of these garments by the absolute. The ascent is like a movement inward, while the descent is a movement outward; in the first the absolute regains its conscious awareness, and in the second it retains this awareness within manifestation. Hence, the descent is into manifestation, but not into exile and alienation. Therefore, just as the journey of ascent is that of shedding and separation leading to the simplicity of singlehood, the journey of descent is that of integration and union leading to the richness of wholeness. The journey of descent is actually a further understanding and realization of the absolute. It is a matter of understanding the absolute as not only the transcendent truth but also as the immanent ground and essence of all Reality. This includes the view and understanding of all of the dimensions and forms of Reality from the vantage point of the absolute. Hence, this and the next chapter can be viewed as a continuation of the previous chapter’s discussion of the absolute. 

The process of development is the same thing as the process of unveiling or shedding at the same time. The development and the actualization of a state is what is needed to go beyond it. They are not two separate things. You cannot go beyond self until you actualize self. For instance, when finally you know your true self, you are it, you realize in the same instant that you’ve gone beyond it. You do not need it any more because you’ve got it. That is the hierarchy of needs—when you do not have it, you need it. You must look for it, but the moment you get it, get it completely, you do not need it any longer. It is not exactly that you do not need it any longer; you realize that it is not important. You realize that it is an idea in your mind anyway. But you do not know that it is just an idea in your mind until you get it. The process of the satisfaction of the needs, the totality of the hierarchy, is the same process as the process of unveiling or shedding. So it looks paradoxical but it is really not a paradox; it is the same thing. When I say you need to let go of your desires, how do you do that? You do not let go by saying you are going to let go; you let go by actualizing them, by understanding them completely. In my opinion, there is no other way than by completely experiencing them. Complete understanding and actualization opens the door for transcendence, for Being to take consciousness further. You cannot let go of self until you completely have self. You cannot let go of your own will until you completely have your will. You cannot let go of love until you have love. That is the natural process of penetrating, of unveiling. 

Once you can see reality, when you wake up in the morning you won’t see anything you’ve ever seen before. When you can truly see, perceive, and taste something, you will see that you have never actually seen it before. Then you know you are looking without your mind. But as long as you recognize something, in the sense of remembering it, in the sense of giving it names and labels, then it is not reality yet and you are not yet truly seeing. To penetrate to reality involves a process of unlearning, a shedding or a dropping-away of mind, getting rid of all that we know. I am not saying that you need to get rid of all you know so that you cannot go do your shopping. We’re talking about perceiving, penetrating to what is, to reality. We are inquiring into the nature of reality, we are not making assertions about what is needed for practical living. It is true that you need your mind, you need what you know to be able to tell which store to go to buy what you want. But that does not mean that you need that knowledge to look at reality. When you are looking at a pool of water and you see a reflection, you know the reflected object is not really there, it is just a reflection. You know that what is there is water. It is the same thing with the mind: When you look, you see the content of mind, but you know it is a reflection. You know the reality is there, not the reflection. We take the reflection in the water to be what is there most of the time, and we forget the water. After a while we take our minds to be what is there and we forget the true reality. 

The journey of ascent is characterized by the movement up the ladder of this ontological hierarchy. Each step is a penetration of a dimension, which is the same thing as the shedding of its characteristic mode of experience. The movement upward is also a movement toward greater simplicity, for what is shed is basically fundamental concepts and differentiations of Reality. And what we find through this shedding is that there is actually no leaving of the old dimension, but a movement to a greater ground that contains and supports the previous one. A metaphor that illustrates this is the dimensions that exist in our bodies. Molecules form a dimension larger and more fundamental than the dimension of organs. Yet, the dimension of atoms is larger and more fundamental than that of molecules, and the dimension of elementary particles is more fundamental than that. Each deeper or more fundamental dimension is simpler, but contains the one previous to it.