Understanding our attachments and realizing the nonconceptual reality of true nature does not resolve our narcissism completely. The empty shell returns, revealing even more primitive levels of its structure, which alienates us again from identity with Being. The object relations that manifest at this juncture are mostly the oral type, and the ego-self is the oral libidinal self that becomes aggressive when it is frustrated. There are different levels of this primitive structure, as we saw in our discussion of oral narcissism. The self at this point manifests as more dynamic and alive than usual, full of impulses, desires, and passions. There is a distinct animal instinctuality to its experience, and a very robust and vigorous emotionality. In some sense, this is the first time that the student experiences herself in a fully emotional and physical way and recognizes a self that is the ground and source of all of her emotions and impulses.

I have been aware that this process involves two intertwining threads—the first a process of finishing and ripening, and the second the contemplation of death. The finishing ends in a certain kind of death, which in turn ushers consciousness into a life of ripening and contentment. I recognize that all need or movement towards a goal, even towards creativity, is ambition, which is based on ego activity. Creativity can be spontaneous unfoldment, but when it is, it happens on its own. I do not need to move towards it, want it, or concern myself with it. As the absolute, all that appears to awareness is my creativity, without my lifting a finger. I am the source of all that arises. The recognition of being devoid of ambition deepens the peace and settling of everyday consciousness. This settling becomes a feeling of contentment. The soul, the individual consciousness, begins to feel like a blobby pearl, soft and pliant, relaxed and settled. It is like being a liquid pearl, suffused with the stillness of peace, and empty of reaction or drive toward activity. Sometimes this feels like being a relaxed old man.

In some fundamental sense, Brilliancy is related to the Absolute directly, to the ultimate condition of Being. The Absolute is actually the only other dimension of Being that feels complete in the way that Brilliancy does, that feels like it includes all the aspects implicitly. The Absolute feels as if it has everything in it, just as Brilliancy does. But there is a very subtle difference: The Absolute has everything in it virtually, implicitly, in potential. The qualities do not exist yet, but one feels no absence of any of them. The sense of completeness of the Absolute is implicit; it is not an explicit feeling or state of consciousness as it is with Brilliancy. There is completeness without the conceptualization of completeness. The essential aspects are still nonmanifest. You feel like everything is there when you experience the Absolute, but you don’t know what “everything” is. You can’t separate this from that—in some sense they are not there to be separated—because the Absolute is not a presence the way an essential aspect is.

It is necessary to consistently make the effort to set the Work over everything else. It is your path for realizing the preciousness in you. What is your life worth without your essence? What’s the good of your business or your relationship or your sex life if you are not in touch with your essence, which is the source of all fulfillment? You can become a millionaire, have hundreds of lovers, whatever, but if you are not in touch with your essence, these things are useless, hollow. You can have all the ideas you want, but if they’re not coming from your true nature, they’re nothing. They are dust. It’s not a matter of trying to decide which is better right now: to do the Work or to do something else. The situation is never like that. When you truly understand what the Work is all about, you will see that the situation is always that the Work is the basis of real life. Whatever else you are going to do is useless if your essence is not in it.

At other times we feel an immeasurable depth and a profound stillness, and experience ourselves as the true nature of everything, but a truth that is continually clothing itself with the creation. We experience ourselves as the source of all manifestation, and the manifest world as a flowing robe that we wear. The logos here is the apparel of the absolute that reveals the treasures hidden in its inscrutable depths. We are the truth, and all of reality is our ornament. The world is alive, breathing with the dynamism of the logos; and the world is real, expressing the truth of true nature. Such majesty and such beauty of appearance are the effects of the presence of the absolute dimension in conjunction with that of the logos.

This brings us back to what we discussed earlier. Remember we saw that the function, life, and evolution of the soul is a development and a maturation process: The soul perceives more and more of the truth until she sees the completeness of the truth and is thus unified with the Source. Now, we can recognize that this movement of love that the soul feels—when love is urging her and pulling the heart toward the Source as if it were a magnet—is the same movement of love that is creating the universe. It is actually a continuation of the creativity of truth revealing itself to itself. And it is manifesting in us, in human beings, through our souls, in a more and more complete way as we approach that Source. So, what we experience as the love that is pulling us toward the Source is nothing but the Source revealing itself in us through love.

The perception of this unity arises through merely seeking to understand the truth of the situation. It is not a matter of generating a particular experience; you just open your eyes to what is here. When you experience this level of truth, you not only perceive this inherent unity, but you also see that as you stay with one boundless dimension, it reveals another, deeper one. Dimensions of formless Being reveal themselves until we come to the origin and source of all dimensions, the Absolute. Initially, you might experience the Absolute as the source of everything, but as your experience matures, you realize that everything is the Absolute—there is no separation. The full experience of the Absolute is that there is nothing but the Absolute. Just as you have seen that love constitutes everything on the dimension of Living Daylight, and Being constitutes everything on the level of the Supreme, here we see that the Absolute constitutes everything. So as our understanding of the nature of reality deepens, it becomes more and more mysterious and nonconceptual, until it arrives at this dimension of the Absolute in which the nature of reality reveals itself as a profound mystery.

Oneness is not concerned about individuals, about the separateness. It does not say, “Oh, this person is suffering, that person is having a good time, let me do something about this.” Oneness doesn’t do anything. It is not of its nature to be concerned, yet it is also the source of all love and all goodness. But the love and goodness of oneness are a natural arising, just like the sun has light. It is not that the sun is concerned about us and says, “Well, the human race needs a little more heat, so let me pump a little more heat.” The nature of the oneness is that it is a source of love, gentleness and humanness, and all of that. It doesn’t have to be concerned. It is bigger than being concerned. In fact, the whole universe is the expression of the love of that oneness. The world that you see is like the robe that this oneness is wearing. And this robe is beauty and grace, made out of love and Essence, but it is also part of the oneness. Oneness as a concept is very difficult to think about, because to do that, you need to contrast it with other things. The oneness means there is nothing else to contrast it with. It does not exclude anything. The moment it excludes something, it is not oneness. There are two things then.

Living your life from the perspective of being an individual who has a sense of identity is the primary source of all personality problems and issues and misunderstandings, because these two things just do not exist. They are figments of your imagination, and of the collective imagination of the human race. If you are always having to protect and operate from that center of self, that personality, that identity, that is what is called self-centered or selfish. You are concerned only for yourself. If the individuality is defined by your boundaries, then the concern is about how big your territory is, what it includes, what it excludes? It is not easy to understand the structure of one’s personality. It takes a lot of work to expose the various constituents, delusions, and structures. The process requires a lot of inquiry, taking you through successive experiences, different kinds of experiences on different levels, exposing the reality of the situation. The experiences in your process tend to reveal over and over that the components of your ego structure do not actually exist, and at the same time tend to reveal to you what is real, what is actually there, rather than only personality structures created by mind. These experiences can transform your life.

To see oneself as the emanating source of all manifestation can lead us to recognize that we are also the subject of all perception. This insight is the specific experience of the self-realization of the absolute dimension. We are the emanating source, and from this place of source we witness all of manifestation arising as emanation. The glimmering is not only the emanation of manifest reality, but also and simultaneously the light of awareness of the absolute. In the very act of emanation the absolute perceives. The self-realization of the absolute dimension is not simply the experience of emanation and the simultaneous witnessing of emanation, but also the recognition that one is the absolute that witnesses the manifestation. We are the subject, and all emanated manifest reality is the object of our perception. The sense of subject is the recognition that the absolute is none other than I. Here the absolute is Self, the inner nature and identity of all Reality. We recognize that we are the mystery at the heart of everything.

Like the tree, the soul’s maturing means that it ripens and bears fruit. In fact, it becomes the ultimate fruit of the universe and the ultimate fruit of the universe is nothing but the soul that is united with its Source. Maturing means that the soul fulfills itself by uniting with its Source in a total and complete way. In other words, the universe has reproduced itself in you, and you become the fruit of the universe. As I said earlier, we have all had experiences in childhood of not being loved, not being loved enough, and not being loved for who we were. But remember, I also said that everyone has been loved. Love was there, but there were all kinds of restrictions on it. The love was limited, distorted, inconsistent, and mixed with all kinds of other things. That, in turn, makes our own realization of love limited, distorted, inconsistent, and mixed with all kinds of other things. The result is that the limitations on love from our childhood created many thick veils, which we have taken to be the Beloved. Moving through these veils then becomes the journey of our return.

If you love truth but you also love comfort, loving comfort may at some point become a barrier to recognizing the truth. For example, you might want to lie to yourself so that you can have the comfort you love. The only way you can continue to see the truth about comfort is by loving the truth more than you love comfort. Comfort is one example, but it could be pleasure, riches, fame, love, recognition, creativity, company, and so on. We recognize at some point that our love for truth is natural; it is inherent in our heart. The heart loves what is true. We also recognize that loving truth is the intelligent thing to do because the truth is ultimately what will free us. It is of ultimate value, and it is the source of all value. Life is incomplete—it lacks depth and genuineness—when there is no truth.

Another significant relationship that becomes clear in this dimension is that the absolute is the source of all aspects, qualities, and forms. It is the single source from which all emanates. We understand the absolute here not only as the ultimate source, but as the only source. It is simply The Source. All else is emanation. This perception is not only a metaphysical insight; it goes to the very heart of liberation. The soul has seen that the absolute is her ipseity, that she is actually the absolute; this self-realization allows us the view that we are the source of all qualities that we normally believe we need. We normally believe that we need love, compassion, intelligence, strength, and so on. In this dimension our view is corrected by seeing it is folly to seek them; for they all come from us, from our presence and identity. As the absolute, we are not only the source of essential qualities, we are actually the source of the situations from which we want the qualities. We are the source of the relationships and activities and life situations that we perceive to possess such qualities. We are, in fact, the source of all creation, all manifest forms and phenomena. We are the source of all; we are the transcendent sun from which everything originates.