The crystalline structure in the chest has the same quality of consciousness as what I have been experiencing as the nameless or nonconceptual transparent nature of everything. This same clarity of being is manifesting now as the nature of the heart. It feels quite different from how I usually experience heart, so different that it is difficult for the mind to accept it as heart. How can heart be so empty that it feels like the very presence of absence? All this time, I have known heart to contain the very richness and fullness of Being. It takes several days of contemplation, with curiosity and openness of mind, before I begin to understand the crystal structure, the crystal heart. This inquiry takes me through a process of becoming aware of a region of my soul that I have never seen so completely or so graphically. I become aware at some point of a certain unclarity in my consciousness that reveals, upon inquiry, a thick and opaque part of my soul. I feel, mostly in my belly and pelvis, some kind of a blobby structure of soul that appears polluted, dirty, almost nauseating. The first reaction is disgust and repulsion, but because of the presence of the crystal heart, and my true desire to see the truth of the situation, I am able to hold this arising manifestation of my soul with an open and inquiring mind. It becomes clear that the turbidity and obscuration in this soul structure is due to a constellation of desires, impulses, needs and wants.

In this process of investigating the crystal heart and the soul region of attachment, the nous attains a crystalline quality; now it can operate with concepts and beyond concepts. The clarity of the nous attains a freshness, and its spaciousness becomes a light-hearted absence of sensation. The sense of transparent clarity and precision dominates the glittering dance of colors, as the understanding goes beyond the qualities and into the fundamental nature of things. I recognize that in the crystal heart there is complete absence of ego tendencies. The heart is crystal clear, without the slightest movement in any direction. In this state the heart is a manifestation of the nonconceptual clarity of Being: open, virginal and refreshingly cool. It has no position, negative or otherwise. I recognize this state of the heart as true detachment. I experience detachment from everything: relationships, pleasure, comfort, security, knowledge, essence, realization, enlightenment, ego, suffering, and so on. The state involves a much more total letting-go than does the state of aloneness. Just as aloneness is a more complete freedom than separation, so is detachment a greater liberation of the heart than aloneness. In separation, my experience of myself is separate and autonomous from my experience of other people. It is freedom within the experience of relating. Aloneness emphasizes detachment from relationships; it is freedom from having to have relationships. I am myself regardless of relationships, whether there is relating or not. And since most of my attachments are to things involving relationships, I have been seeing detachment in terms of aloneness.

I wake up with the crystal heart filling the chest. I feel it as a hard, neutral presence. I feel an absence of love; this morning the crystal heart does not feel like love. In fact, I feel that I have no heart. I cannot tell whether the crystal heart feels this way, or if it exposes an ego structure that feels empty of heart. By afternoon, it becomes clear that the absence of heart is not exactly related to the crystalline heart of presence. The lack is revealed to be the reaction of the ego-self. I become aware of a deficient sense of personality. As I contemplate this conditioned state of the soul, I notice that I slowly become it. I finally feel myself as a person, an ego person with feelings. This clarifies my confusion of the crystal heart with the absence of heart. This person of ego recognizes only familiar emotions and feelings as the presence of heart. I experience myself now as a person who is not trying to defend or protect himself. The inner condition is naked, exposed. No more defenses, no more pretenses. There are vulnerability, helplessness, weakness, not knowing, some innocence, and a very deep sadness. The person feels all these emotions. The sense of self, with its accompanying emotional state, appears simultaneously with the ego-line, indistinguishable from it. The contraction at the ego line feels harsh and prickly; there is a feeling of deep anguish. I feel curious about this person whom I have known for most of my life, the person I have taken myself to be for many years. I wonder whether this person wants something. To my surprise, a longing arises, a longing for the absolute. I see the mysterious blackness of the absolute, and as the empty and helpless person, I feel a definite longing to annihilate into it. The longing arises first as a sad and gentle yearning. Then it gradually transforms into a deep and intense love for the absolute. 

Understanding attachment, and the freedom from attachment that arises through the impact of nonconceptual presence, liberates the heart from its habit of orienting according to fixed preferences. The heart becomes transparent to the operation of essential intelligence, functioning from a ground of nonattachment. Its love and joy are now free, totally unattached. It can love fully without having to possess what it loves, liberating its joy and delight, which become the celebration of Reality, immaculate presence, and pristine awareness. The soul learns from direct experience that nonattachment is nothing but the nonconceptual presence in the heart, as the heart of enlightenment, the crystal heart. Such heart responds openly, spontaneously, without premeditation or prejudice. It responds without hesitation to the objective needs of the situation, with a nonconceptual intelligence that needs no inner recognition.As the discriminating mind dissolves under the impact of nonconceptual presence the dichotomies merge into each other, and all polarities reveal their underlying unity as the uniformly blissful field of awareness.

As this understanding clarifies my consciousness, the crystal heart fills both chest and belly. I feel more accepting of the heart in the clear crystal form. As a result, I can see it more fully, recognizing details I have not seen before. Its foundation is crystalline silver and gold, indicating the presence of personal essential will, and essential truth, both beyond concepts. That night, it manifests other qualities, qualities I am already acquainted with as those of the heart. I see the beautiful colors of gold, pink, yellow, grenadine, turquoise, amber, orange, apricot, honey, and so on, as flashings of the facets of the crystal heart. Perceiving the dance of these crystal clear colors, I taste the various kinds of sweetness these heart qualities possess. I notice that this manifestation of Being arises in a space both black and clear, where the clarity and the blackness alternately dominate. The crystal heart is now a complete heart, whose essence is clear transparent detachment, and whose manifestations are the sweetnesses of the various forms of love.

I recognize that in the crystal heart there is complete absence of ego tendencies. The heart is crystal clear, without the slightest movement in any direction. In this state the heart is a manifestation of the nonconceptual clarity of Being: open, virginal and refreshingly cool. It has no position, negative or otherwise. I recognize this state of the heart as true detachment. I experience detachment from everything: relationships, pleasure, comfort, security, knowledge, essence, realization, enlightenment, ego, suffering, and so on. The state involves a much more total letting-go than does the state of aloneness. Just as aloneness is a more complete freedom than separation, so is detachment a greater liberation of the heart than aloneness. In separation, my experience of myself is separate and autonomous from my experience of other people. It is freedom within the experience of relating. Aloneness emphasizes detachment from relationships; it is freedom from having to have relationships. I am myself regardless of relationships, whether there is relating or not. And since most of my attachments are to things involving relationships, I have been seeing detachment in terms of aloneness. This new detachment is from more than relationships; it is detachment from everything. Detachment includes aloneness, but goes much further. It is the absence of hope and longing for the objects of attachment, and for the pleasures and comforts they promise, without rejection or judgment.