The personal witness is aware of the immediate environment of the location of consciousness, while the universal witness is aware, in addition, of the totality of the universe, as if from above or from afar. This perception does not include all of the details of manifestation, but rather a general perception, as if awareness has receded backward until all that exists is in front of it. Phenomenologically, the perception is of being an endless emptiness, so vast that the whole of existence is a small manifestation within it, seen in general outline as a river of images in constant flux. The awareness is aware of itself as a witnessing of everything without being involved in anything. A dark awareness, but not exactly black. It is more dark gray, the color of the aspect of existence, but it is sheer voidness. It is not no-mind space, for although it is beyond thought and mind, mind can exist within it.  

The facetedness of any form of consciousness signifies objective understanding or knowledge of what it is. In other words, when any quality of consciousness, like gold for instance, appears in a faceted jewel-like form, it indicates an objective understanding of what this form, gold, is. Existence is an essential aspect of Being. Being reveals itself to be the true existence of any manifestation. However, when Being reveals itself as the experience of true existence it manifests in a specific form, an immense presence of unusual density, solidity and reality. This form of presence has the shiny gray color of the metal molybdenum, but the mass and density of hematite. The aspect of existence functions partly as a form of will. It can be experienced as the will to exist. Here there is a doorway to other dimensions of essential experience, where each essential aspect can manifest in deeper and deeper dimensions of objectivity. In one of these dimensions each of the aspects functions as a form of will. 

The juxtaposition of clear light and the dark emptiness of the absolute frequently gives the quintessence an almost gray color, or more exactly, the color of the sky at dawn. In this condition, the sense of spaciousness disappears, for the emptiness of the absolute appears as nondimensionality, beyond the concepts of space and distance. We refer to the condition of this dimension as quintessence because it is the true essence of manifestation. Manifest forms require presence, for manifestation means being. More exactly, manifestation means the arising of the manifest dimensions, those of pure awareness and presence; for without light or presence there is no manifestation, only the absolute in its absoluteness. In other words, manifestation is the appearance of forms that the dimension of pure presence assumes, due to the flow of the logos. Yet manifestation is never separate from the absolute, for it is its radiance.  Therefore, manifestation always has a ground composed of both pure presence and absolute, being and nonbeing.