The first of the four junctures on the path of awakening is necessary awakening, which refers to the close encounter of the third kind with true nature. The second juncture is primary awakening, which we usually refer to as the self-realization of true nature. This is different from the personal experience of true nature as radically other. Primary awakening is being true nature and recognizing yourself as being true nature, which means that true nature recognizes itself through your individual consciousness. Whereas you encounter true nature in the first juncture, in the second juncture of the path, you realize true nature or, put another way, true nature realizes itself as and through you. Both of these—necessary and primary awakening, the experience and the self-realization of true nature—can occur in any form, quality, or dimension of true nature. As we know in our work, the encounter with true nature exposes us to many qualities and forms.

This brings us to the fourth juncture on the path of realization and awakening. Here we recognize and understand reality experientially as true nature and as what we are. I mean reality in all senses of the word, which is what I call Total Being. Everyday reality, which is reality according to the dualistic view, is included in what I mean by reality. Once we have an encounter with true nature, then reality appears differently. And when there is realization of true nature, then that primary awakening changes our perception of reality, and we understand it differently. Each kind of realization changes our understanding of reality. In other words, realization is not only about how you experience yourself but also about how you experience reality, how you experience everything. Total Being refers to all these understandings of reality and all other possible ones.

The fourth turning introduces other possibilities of experiencing reality, including other ways of experiencing unity and oneness. True nature manifests itself in ways that reveal more of its secrets, allowing us to perceive reality in new ways. For example, we can experience and realize reality in a holographic way. …. The view of realization that I am calling holographic is an experience, perception, and understanding that directly uses the property of holograms. It is the realization that any part of reality—whether our individual location, an object, or a form—contains all the rest of reality, all other forms and dimensions of reality. Parts are connected, but in a way that is different from that of nondual realization. They are connected as they are in a hologram, in the sense that each discrete point of time and space contains all other discrete points of time and space. This experience of unity is quite different from the nondual perception of sameness, which has a sense of unity that extends through space.

The third juncture on the path is essential activation, the igniting of red sulfur, the philosophers’ stone expressing its self-creative dynamism. Activation means that realization is alive, that it can spontaneously unfold to reveal the possibilities—forms, formlessness, and otherwise—of true nature. Activation ignites the process of a living realization by recognizing that all form and formlessness, all manifestations of true nature, are the selfsame true nature. The experience and realization of any expression of true nature is all of true nature. Even though I am talking about it as the third juncture, this activation does not necessarily come third; it can happen at any time. It might be that recognizing the primordial purity of true nature in necessary awakening activates this dynamism. Or the self-realization of primary awakening might spark it. Or we may first need to recognize and realize the nonhierarchy of reality. And, then again, none of these might do the trick.