The aspect of Knowing, as we have mentioned, is the same as the aspect of consciousness. Understanding what we mean by that is important for understanding the basis of this direct and basic knowing. The Blue aspect is a quality of presence, a way that the presence of Essence manifests. It is an aspect that expresses and reveals something significant about our true nature. But it is a very basic quality, in the sense that all other qualities depend on it. By understanding what we mean by consciousness, we can also more fully understand what presence is. Essence is always a presence of a field that is sensitive in itself. It is—it exists—but it is also aware of itself. It is aware of its isness. Each quality of Essence is the self-aware field that is also aware of the particular quality of the aspect. If it is the aspect of Love, then there is the presence of a field of sensitivity that is aware of its isness, but also aware of the quality of Love. The Love and the isness are not separate here; there is simply the presence of Love that is aware of itself as the presence of Love. With the Blue aspect, there is awareness of isness, of presence, but the quality of the Blue aspect is very subtle, for it is implicit and yet significant in all other aspects. The experience is simply of a presence of consciousness that is aware that it is consciousness. It is just the recognition that there is recognition. More precisely, the presence of the quality of consciousness is simply the presence of consciousness and nothing more. This consciousness is not aware of any object outside of itself. But since it is consciousness, it is consciousness of itself. It is a field conscious of itself, aware of itself.

Transitional dimensions appear in various degrees of integration. We have discussed the major dimensions; the integration also appears in various combinations of these. The process is nonlinear, so the unfoldment moves back and forth for some time before integration is complete. One possibility of integration is the interpenetration of the absolute and another dimension, like that of nonconceptual presence or pure presence. Sometimes the three are combined such that they interpenetrate one another, almost completely mixed but still differentiated and recognizable. Various states arise, revealing the richness and wonder of Reality, where it is beauty pervaded by the mysterious blackness of the absolute. A significant state is that of the integration of the absolute with the blue aspect, which is the aspect of basic knowingness and consciousness. We then experience everything as a boundless blue-black absolute. We see a deep blue vastness that becomes darker at the depth, until it becomes the black absolute. At such place of interpenetration the blue and black completely mix and become one presence of deep blue-black mystery. This is a state of absorption and mental rest, consciousness without discrimination, where there is consciousness of the absolute without mental reflection or specific knowing. It is a condition in which mind and consciousness melt into the absolute. This state points to the next integration.

The Blue aspect is usually difficult for most people to access because their minds are so busy and their inner consciousness is so agitated. Things like worry, guilt, and agitated desire all tend to dissipate such repose and lead us away from our Being. What we are left with is a subject-object kind of knowing, mostly of the mental/conceptual type. Yet this basic knowing inherent in the Blue aspect is the foundation for all knowing, for it is the simple and original element of knowing—the element that every other kind of knowing is based on. We see here the unity of epistemology and ontology, for this aspect is a presence in which the beingness is itself the knowingness. When knowing splits off from being, we end up with ordinary knowledge, a knowledge that is not sufficient to reconnect us with our Being, no matter how useful it is in the practical world. Such understanding reveals the necessity for stillness, silence, slowness, and solitude in the initial stages of any inner path. Otherwise, it will be difficult for us to settle down and for our mind to abide in its primordial being. And without this abiding, we have no other way to truly know ourselves. The Blue aspect is the quality of our true nature that is responsible for direct, immediate knowing. This capacity is essential in inquiry to give us contact with the truth of our experience in the moment. Therefore, though we do not necessarily experience the Blue Essence in our personal inquiry, we still retain its contribution as a basic implied capacity. Each moment that we know our experience directly, we are feeling the action of the Blue diamond of the Guidance.

Knowingness—the capacity to know through direct contact with an element of our experience—is related to a particular essential aspect. It is related to the operation of the Blue diamond, which is the Blue Essence in its diamond presence. The Blue Essence is usually called the aspect of pure consciousness, but it is also the aspect of knowingness. Even intellectual knowledge is based on this capacity; without inherent direct and intimate knowingness, ordinary knowledge would not be possible. Direct knowingness is what gives us the data necessary for our mind to think and spin out its knowledge. Without knowingness, we have no data.

This direct knowing is most obvious when we experience Essence and its aspects. When, for instance, the black quality of Peace arises and we absorb ourselves in it, we know it is peace, we know it is stillness. We don’t need somebody to tell us that it’s peace. Even if we don’t give it the name “peace,” something in us recognizes that it is a specific quality different from other qualities, and knows how it is different. This inherent capacity in our soul is provided by the Blue aspect. The Blue aspect gives our psyche the capacity to know through immersion, through identity, through intimacy, through contact, through gnosis. This capacity is very elemental and totally basic to all our experience. This quality of knowing can be impure, obscured, and limited or very pure, full, refined, and clear. When it is refined and clear, we experience it as essential presence. When it’s not, when this knowingness is incomplete, we experience it as our normal knowing of thoughts, emotions, and sensations.

In other words, without ordinary knowledge we have no familiar identity. Using only pure basic knowing, the self cannot maintain itself; it has to be surrendered, melted. Hence, the Blue aspect is an especially selfless aspect. It is in some sense the most undefined and formless of all aspects. The Blue aspect arises in the center of the head, just as the Green aspect arises in the center of the chest. From this we can also see that just as the Green is the sensitivity that forms the essence of the heart, the Blue is the consciousness that forms the essence of the mind. This is probably the reason why some Sufis consider the Blue to be connected to the Green, as if they form the two sides of one latifa . . . . . . The integration of this essential quality gives us the capacity to immerse ourselves in any particular experience, to absorb our consciousness in it so much that we are intimately in contact with it in all its nuances. We can mix our consciousness with it so much that we know its atoms, the fundamental particles that make up the experience. And the more we recognize this capacity, the more it becomes specific, the more it develops and integrates, and our experience becomes more pervaded by that kind of knowingness. So when it is said, “Know yourself,” that’s what is meant—know yourself intimately and directly; because the abstractions that arise out of direct knowing and form ordinary knowledge will not lead you to true self-knowledge.

The Blue aspect is the quality of our true nature that is responsible for direct, immediate knowing. This capacity is essential in inquiry to give us contact with the truth of our experience in the moment. Therefore, though we do not necessarily experience the Blue Essence in our personal inquiry, we still retain its contribution as a basic implied capacity. Each moment that we know our experience directly, we are feeling the action of the Blue diamond of the Guidance.

We see that the ability of the presence to be conscious that it is conscious implies that it knows, and knows it knows. To know, and to know this knowing, is the exact experience of the Blue aspect of Essence. And this is what it means when we say that Essence is conscious of itself as presence. Essence is presence that knows itself as presence. If we continue this subtle analysis, we can see that to know in this way is to be, because knowing and being are inseparable. The knowing of presence is presence. But this inseparability of knowing and being is the most fundamental epistemological truth regarding Essence.