This open attitude of inquiry is the means of engaging not only the dynamism of Being but the spaciousness that is the infinite potentiality of our true nature. Most fundamentally, it is a direct expression of the truth that true nature is ultimately a mystery. The absolute openness of true nature means that you can never know it completely, can never close the book on inquiry into it. You can never conclude the inquiry, because to conclude the inquiry is to stop the unfoldment, to stop the dynamism—and the dynamism cannot be stopped. Why? Because true nature is infinite in its possibilities, and it is infinite in its possibilities because it is the absolute mystery.  

Under normal circumstances, an individual in serious spiritual work follows a particular teaching, a certain path that involves a perspective, a detailed knowledge of Reality and the path to it, along with various attitudes and methods. He needs to faithfully follow the teaching, for a real teaching is the objective manifestation of true and essential knowledge, the nous of true nature. Yet, to be fully liberated he must go beyond any knowing, and his realization must be independent of his discriminating mind. This will be possible only if he does not adhere to his path as the final description of reality —not because the description is necessarily wrong or inaccurate, but because true nature is ultimately beyond any description, any system or teaching. This possibility of detachment from the path he has faithfully followed is granted when true nature manifests its nonconceptual presence. It appears as nonattachment in his heart, and as total openness in his mind. He is open to see that the teaching he has been following has been, at least partially, conceptual. He can now see all teachings, and all systems and wisdom traditions, simply as useful stories that explain Reality and the path of liberation, but that liberation itself is beyond any and all stories, any and all teachings, any and all knowing. 

The is a definite relationship between working through ego structures and the arising of inner spaciousness. This manifestation of true nature expresses its absolute dimension, with its emptiness. Inner spaciousness is not the same as ontological emptiness but is related to it in some mysterious way. The point is that because of this relationship, inner space stands for the total openness and lack of determination of true nature. True nature is ultimately formless, and hence any fixed or rigid structuring, as happens in ego development, is antithetical to it. In other words, ego structures, through their self-representations, specifically obstruct the ultimate indeterminacy of true nature, barring from the experience of the soul the aspect of inner space. More specifically, identifying with a self-image automatically blocks inner spaciousness. Therefore, when the soul finally understands a self-image and does not hold on to it, space arises.   

We reach the essence of integration in the journey of descent. Ultimate integration is perfect coemergence. But this means that there is no such thing as descent, for descent implies distance and differentiation. Alternately stated, the journey of descent culminates in the end of descent, but also the end of ascent. In the quintessential dimension the concepts of ascent and descent lose their meaning. They are useful for discriminating knowledge and understanding, for they are the differentiated discrimination of true nature. Yet, true nature is ultimately nondifferentiated, a primordial synthesis. 

True Nature is unable to resist anything. It is not in our True Nature to separate something out and fight it off. It is not designed to do that. 

When we experience true nature directly, especially in the condition of realization where we are true nature, we recognize a kind of freedom that is unknown by the mind and our usual consciousness. In the experience of love or awareness or emptiness, even though we might initially be more captivated by the particular wisdom or properties of true nature, we can nevertheless discern, especially as the realization matures, the sense of freedom inherent to the experience. The presence of true nature in any of its conditions has no Velcro, no stickiness, no fixity. True nature is unconditioned, meaning it has no limits. In most spiritual traditions, enlightenment means waking up to true nature as the nature of what we are and what reality is. This reveals a profound kind of freedom. The mind is free, the heart is free, the consciousness is free. 

Realization, in other words, is the movement from necessary awakening to primary awakening. It means not only realizing that true nature is what we are but also living that realization in our expressions and communication, in our actions and life. We can come to realize that true nature is what lives, is what communicates. So in realization, the center of gravity moves from the ego self to true nature itself. And here true nature can assume any form or manifestation—bounded, boundless, or even something other than that dichotomy. We recognize in realization that we are not the usual self, the ordinary self, or what is sometimes called the small self or the ego self.  

The concept of being has quite a complex history in Western metaphysics and understanding. When I talk about being, I mean what it is that gives our awareness and consciousness its factness, its thatness, its I-am-ness. It is the experience of beingness that gives us and everything its thatness. Beingness is the ground and the truth that underlies everything, not in the sense that everything sits on top of it, but in the sense that it is what makes everything be and be what it is. Just as true nature is what makes us be what we are, it is also what makes everything be what it is. This means making everything be and making everything be what it is—both the thatness and the whatness of everything.  

This brings us then to recognizing the truth—recognizing what we are actually experiencing and recognizing that truth is our True Nature. We discover that that is what we are, not just what we experience. Many steps and experiences of being with the truth as it reveals the false or learned ignorance may be needed before True Nature is revealed as our nature. And love of the truth must be our guide. Ultimately, by staying with the process, we arrive at the third level of understanding, where we see and know that True Nature, our True Nature, is what moves everything—that it is the source of everything. How does this discovery happen? By simply being where we are. Throughout the journey, whether we’re inquiring or we’re meditating or just going about our business, we’re learning to be present and aware, to just be there, not doing anything to anything. This attitude invites True Nature to reveal itself, to reveal that it is what we are, and to reveal how everything else relates to it.  

Although this deals with our tendency to appropriate the illuminating power of true nature, it can also lead to a position that keeps us firmly in the dual view. Because some theistic traditions consider God, the source of grace, as something absolutely other, we can come to assume that there is a me and a God and that grace always comes from God, from the outside. This view can hinder the possibility of self-realization. We can recognize grace and expansion and surrender, and we can also see, “That is what reality is; that is what I am,” without the “I” referring to the usual sense of self. Self-realization means that we see that true nature is what our being is; it is what is conscious and what is aware.  

By appropriating the enlightenment drive, we are negating the action of the divine, of true nature. We are being infidels, not recognizing where the truth is coming from and believing that it comes from us. Using the language of monotheism, appropriation is believing that there is more than one God; it is believing that there is somebody else that does what God does. The appropriation can be an expression of not recognizing that the divine or true nature acts. Even though it is expressed through the individual soul, true nature is what stirs us and wakes us up. If we don’t recognize that, we are negating the action of grace and the role of grace. We want to see the balance of the relationship between the two, between the role of grace and our role, between realization and practice. We don’t want to negate either one of them. We want to see reality as it is. What is the role of the individual and what is the role of true nature or God or the divine? How do they interface? How does practice happen? What makes it work?  

How do we come to understand our True Nature? And what does it even mean to understand it? There are three aspects to understanding our True Nature. First, we need to know what True Nature is. Second, we have to recognize it as our own nature, not as something outside of ourselves or as an abstraction. And third, we need to understand the relationship of our True Nature to the rest of manifestation —to the thoughts, the feelings, the body, the objects we see, and so on. To know what True Nature is, to know that it is what we are, and to know its relationship to everything in manifestation—that is full understanding. That is illumination. That is enlightenment. Each of these three steps brings us toward more complete understanding. And each step of understanding is more difficult than the one before it. So, we might recognize True Nature, but be unaware that that is what we are. Or we might recognize True Nature and know ourselves as that, but we might not yet know how it relates to everything else. Let’s look at these three steps in more detail. 

I know that it is difficult for us sometimes to let ourselves experience this inherent value in the moment. To value the moment means that it is okay to value ourselves, to recognize ourselves as worth it, as deserving this richness —and we have issues, questions, and beliefs about valuing ourselves. Many of us have painful or difficult histories. Certain experiences, beliefs, and projections make us feel that we are not worth it, we are not good enough, or that we have to do one thing or another to receive or assign to ourselves any value or esteem. That leads to the belief that we have to try, we have to make an effort, we have to suffer a lot and tread a long path before we can arrive at what is valuable, at what the true value and meaning of life is. But all these are just issues, obscurations, that have nothing to do with the truth. Value is True Nature and True Nature is what we are. Valuing the moment is valuing ourselves, is valuing our nature, is valuing everybody and everything. 

In this teaching, we deal with primary awakening by inquiring into the narcissism of the self and the realization of the point of existence. In this segment of the work, we learn what realization is. It is not only discovering our essential identity and learning our true nature. The point is to recognize that true nature is what we are. Although the work on the point of existence makes clear the distinction between primary and necessary awakening, primary awakening does not necessarily have to be the realization of the pure form of spiritual identity.  

“Awakening,” as we have seen in our exploration of necessary and primary awakening, the expressions I’m using to convey some of the factors that are useful for essential activation, means recognizing true nature. In necessary awakening, we are awakening to true nature or spirit or truth in a way that shows how radically different it is from ordinary egoic experience. When we awaken to what we are, when we recognize what we are in its essential nature, in its true nature, we are experiencing realization. For me, realization equates with being: We are not only aware of true nature, but we are aware that true nature is what we are. Awakening is the simple awareness of true nature, without our necessarily experiencing true nature as what we are.  

And true nature is also what we are. It is what we are regardless of how we experience ourselves—whether as pure presence or as pure awareness or as pure emptiness or as essential identity or as personal presence. So when I say that we are true nature, I mean that we continue to be the individual we are and that we are also this mysterious philosophers’ stone that can be everything at one time or another. This language is tricky because when I say that we as individuals are this stone that can take any of these forms or formlessnesses, it seems to imply that true nature is something that exists on its own. But it doesn’t actually exist apart from an individual. That is to say, it doesn’t exist apart from the thing that it is the nature of, because it is its true nature, the nature of everything. Is true nature something on its own? Is there true nature apart from all the things that true nature is the nature of? If we eliminate all manifestation, would there still be true nature? 

We have discussed how true nature is timeless and spaceless, but this does not say much about the actual experience of timelessness and spacelessness. Such an experience is so miraculous and magnificent that describing it in metaphysical language ends up sounding empty and drab, heavy and dull. We say that true nature is without qualities, but we also say it is infinite. Here, infinity is not the endlessness of time or space, but rather of lack of limitation. It points to the pure potentiality of true nature, from which arises the universe of myriad things. This infinity can be experienced, but it is very difficult to describe such experience except by giving its impact on body and mind. We can say it is stupendous, it is mind-blowing, it is amazing, it is bedazzling, and all this is true. But such descriptions simply express how we are impacted by the revelation of the infinity of true nature; they do not describe true nature itself.