A Movement from Nonmanifestation to Manifestation

We have seen how the world of experience is continually generated by the logos, as an unfolding pattern of forms and phenomena. One way of experiencing this is to see that the manifest world is not a continuation from the past, but an arising in the moment. It simply manifests, as a new creation, a movement from nonmanifestation to manifestation. Such understanding can begin the inquiry into what nonmanifestation means. When we recognize the unfoldment of the logos as the appearing out of nonmanifestation, where does the appearing appear from, or in? What is the unmanifest, if there is such a thing? Can we step out of the manifest world and witness the process of manifestation? The Inner Journey Home, pg.376

The Unmanifest

We experience ourselves as a vastness, an immensity, an expanse so deep it is absolutely dark. Though dark and still, inscrutable and silent, it is the source of all luminosity and light. And within this immeasurable immensity, we witness the process of creation. We see a dynamic presence, the divine logos, flowing out of the absolute, revealing its potentialities as the manifest reality, disclosing its mysteries as the multidimensional manifold of existence and experience. Yet, because of the infinity of the absolute we see this manifold as a surface phenomenon, as if the absolute is so pure and pristine that it glitters and shines, its brilliance forming a surface, colorful and luminous. This colorful and luminous surface of radiance is continually scintillating with colors and forms, shapes and patterns. We witness an unfolding surface of clear and variegated light, whose pattern is the totality of creation. The absolute is prior to light, but also its source and ultimate nature and mystery. The light is the unfolding logos, whose pattern is the totality of existence, a dynamic unified manifold. The scintillating light is one unified surface, with no parts and no partitions, a field of radiance full of intelligence and truth, reality and significance. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 377

Cessation

The experience of cessation can occur in different ways, usually before the discovery of the absolute, as the initial entry into it. It can be precipitated by the experience of mystical poverty, when we recognize how our attachments and compulsive desires disconnect us from our true nature. Letting go of these attachments, we realize we have to let go of everything. This includes not only the sensuous objects of the world and the satisfaction they promise us, but also inner riches: making a contribution, having a position, knowledge, a state, fruits of the work, a station, recognition, anything. As the soul lets go of all of her possessions, including her qualities and capacities, even her existence, she experiences the state of poverty. This state has a sense of having nothing, feeling nothing, being nothing, perceiving nothing. Accepting and welcoming the total emptiness of this state can lead to the state of cessation, where the last thing to go is perception. The Inner Journey Home, pg.382

Selflessness

Therefore, the absolute is the absence of all the components that give us the sense of self. The silence and stillness of the absolute means that there is no inner content, no inner forms, not even sensation. There is absolutely nothing upon which to base a sense of self. There is no sense of boundary or image, no sense of center or existence, and hence nothing to give us the feeling of self. We experience ourselves as totally selfless, completely devoid of self. There is absolutely nothing, and such nothing is the source and nature of all our manifestations; it simply witnesses them. There is no sense of a self that experiences or is aware of manifestations or movements. More precisely, to experience the absolute is to experience the absence of self, person, entity, soul, essence, substance, presence. We realize very distinctly that the sense of the entity of the self is actually a result of holding different things together with some sort of glue. The glue is the concept of entity, giving the illusion of entitihood. When this holding is relaxed, then nothing remains; there does not remain even a sense of being. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 386

Emptiness

In discovering this dimension of true nature, we realize that this selflessness is the ultimate nature of everything. The absolute turns out to be the final ontological status of all things, the ultimate status of existence of all forms of manifestation. When we inquire into this final ontological nature we find nothing, no object of perception. We simply feel light and empty, free and unencumbered. And everything in manifest reality has the same quality of lightness and emptiness. All forms appear as diaphanous forms, empty of substance. It is as if all forms are holograms, forms of light, empty of any solidity or heaviness. Everything is transparent, with no opaqueness anywhere. The manifest forms—houses and furniture, mountains and rivers, trees and animals, men and women, thoughts and feelings—appear as particulars of a dynamic unfolding multidimensional field; but it is a field of total lightness, as if it is an emptiness that luminates and its lumination is the forms of appearance. The Inner Journey Home, pg.387

Crystalline Absence

When we are precise and exact in our understanding of the absolute nature, the solidity can attain a faceted and crystalline quality. We experience ourselves then as a crystalline absence, a clear and absolutely transparent immensity. This experience is completely paradoxical. We feel totally solid and full, with crystalline sharpness and clarity, yet simultaneously we feel so light, so empty, so not there, that we are the absolute absence of anything. We are both simultaneously, a quality of experience completely incomprehensible to the conceptual mind. Yet it is the most beautiful, the most aesthetically satisfying, and the most dazzling of perceptions. We feel fully present, but our presence is so smooth and crystalline because it is solid absence, with no coarseness and no opaqueness. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 396

Nondimensional Truth

When we understand the nondimensionality of the absolute, we understand that the more open we are the more we are in touch with the nonbeingness of our true nature. The openness is the external manifestation of this nonbeingness. But nonbeingness is not an expanse; it is nothing at all, so how can it possess extension? It has no extension at all, it completely transcends the concept of distance. We experience this directly when we are more familiar with the emptiness and nonbeingness of the absolute. At the beginning it may feel like an openness, a spaciousness, or an expansive nothingness. When we know it more intimately, we begin to see that it does not have the sense of extension, that it does not actually feel like space. The mind simply cannot comprehend this at the beginning, for it is nothing like anything it knows. We simply feel a simplicity and intimacy, a state that possesses no shape, no size, no extension. This is the essence of space, which is also the essence of the absolute. Therefore, when we feel more open with another we are more in touch with this extensionless condition of nonbeing. As a result, we experience less phenomenological distance from the other, which we feel psychologically as closeness and intimacy. And when we are fully in touch with the extensionless nonbeingness of the absolute, we experience no distance at all from the other. Because there is no extension, we experience no distance. The amazing result is the sense that we are totally one. We perceptually see the other at a distance, but feel no sense of distance; in fact the concept of distance is transcended. It is like our individual souls are spokes of the same wheel, but are aware of themselves only at the rim. At the rim it appears as if there are many souls, with distance between them. But when they become aware of their depth, at the center of the wheel, they feel no distance between them, for they are identically one. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 398

The Mystery

We can know it, but to know it is to know it as mystery, the ultimate mystery from which all being and knowledge arise. To feel the exquisite intimacy of its nonbeingness and to see the absolute blackness of its emptiness is to behold a majestic mystery, luminous and deep, awesome and enveloping, yet inviting in its annihilating touch and caressing in its melting embrace. We behold a mystery that we passionately wish to know, and we know that to know it is to cease being, yet we long to be embraced by its annihilation and love, to be taken in by its cessation. To know it is to cease, and to cease is to know it. To know it is to not know it, but to not know is to know it. To know it is to know it as mystery. It is the mystery that must remain a mystery, which cannot but be a mystery. Its being a mystery saves us from the obsessions of our mind, and from the false securities that our false self thrives on. We behold it as mystery, a mystery that by remaining a mystery liberates us from the traps of the manifest world. We learn to live in mystery, to be supported by ultimate insecurity, and to love the flavor of nonbeing. The absolute is a luminous mystery, yet also the source of all knowledge and being. Everything we know is a knowledge of it; for whatever we know is a manifestation that expresses something about it. Even when we approach it as unmanifest and absolute mystery, nondetermination and nondelimitation, we gain tremendous luminous insights about it. When we see that it is nonbeing and being implicit and undifferentiated, it is an earthshaking insight; when we realize it is stillness and silence it is a balm for the heart; when we know it is nondimensional it uplifts the most ecstatic lovers; when we recognize it is mystery it dazzles our minds and hearts with joy and bliss. Although all these are correct in that they tell us something about the absolute, and lead us deeper into it, they are not completely correct, because the absolute is ultimately indeterminable. They are approximations on the right track, for they lead us deeper into its mystery. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 401

Home

Being at home is one of the most characteristic feelings the soul receives when beholding the luminous darkness of the mystery. The soul frequently has this feeling the instant she feels herself abiding in its luminous darkness. It is not a conclusion, not a reasoned understanding, not the result of understanding or consciously knowing something about the absolute. It is a spontaneous recognition that happens to most people when they find themselves in the absolute. We have the instant and joyous recognition that this is our true home. We finally feel completely at home; we understand why we love to feel at home, and why it is so difficult to feel at home. The soul realizes that she has been estranged from her source, exiled from her home. She realizes that she has been roaming the universe looking for her home, feeling uncomfortable and unsettled, lost and bereaved. She has been looking mostly in the wrong places, in manifest objects and places, when her home is within, totally within, within but beyond all of manifestation. When we know only the manifest world we are estranged from our true home, living in exile, and always waiting, whether consciously or unconsciously, to return home at last, to finally rest and forget all of our woes and worries. Now the time comes, in the lap of the luminous darkness, in the depths of total mystery. We recognize this without anyone telling us, for in our hearts we have always known. Our minds have told us various stories about where home is, where rest is, where contentment is, but now we know with certainty that we are home at last, and wonder how we came to be lost. We feel like celebrating, full of joy and dancing with delight. The Inner Journey Home, pg.403

The Beloved

We see that all that we have loved, we loved because it revealed something about our true beloved to us. It was a reflection of the true beloved, a message from him, a beckoning toward him. But we did not see that at the time, instead filling our heart with these partial expressions. Now our true love has revealed Himself to us, and the heart instantly recognizes and rejoices. We realize we have always been in love, sometimes sweetly and tenderly and other times passionately and deeply. We have always been forlorn and sad, dejected and depressed. When we were in the company of an earthly love we could not feel the total intimacy that we knew our heart wanted. Our love has always been unrequited, because all the loves were substitute loves, at best partial manifestations of our true love. Now that we are united with our true beloved, our earthly love is balanced and seen in perspective. It deepens and expands, for we see how much beauty and majesty our earthly love reminds us of, and expresses to us. In other words, we realize that we love others and objects because we see something in them that expresses our true beloved. We have earthly love because all manifestation is the appearance and body of our true beloved. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 405

Depth

We realize that our beloved is in the most absolute depth of our soul. We discover that our beloved is not only in the depth, but is the depth of our soul. We learn that the absolute is pure depth, depth with no end. The darker it gets the deeper we feel, and the more profound is the truth. The deeper and darker it becomes the more empty, the more free, and the more intimate. The absolute turns out to be the principle of depth, and all manifestation is surface. We tend to think of depth in terms of feeling, thought, and knowledge. In the inner journey home we find out that these are actually part of the surface, for they are an expression of the horizontal world of everyday life. We discover that, in fact, true nature in all of its qualities and dimensions stands for depth in our experience and life. We experience the unfoldment of our soul as taking our experience deeper because we are following the dimension of depth. When we arrive at the realization of the absolute we understand depth most clearly and distinctly, for it is the dimension where we know depth most specifically. The absolute, we can say, is pure depth. It is absolute depth because it is the source of all. The Inner Journey Home, pg.405

Ipseity

The absolute is such a mystery that even though it is total selflessness it is also the ultimate self. What can that mean? We have seen that the absolute is the divine essence, the inner essence of Being. It is the final nature of everything, including ego and essence. It is the absolute nature of the soul, her deepest ground. To realize it is to recognize in direct experience that there is nothing that is not constituted by it. We feel we are constituted by it, that it forms our very substance and identity. We are it, and it is us. We feel and see it as a luminous crystal presence of black clarity. But at the same time we feel it is I, nothing but me, for there is nothing else that can be me. It is not like there is a cognitive sense or feeling of I, identity, or self. There is no conceptual quality of the beingness of the mystery. But there is a perception or apperception that it is none other than I. It is a perception of the luminous night being the beingness of me, without the feeling of me. The I is not the familiar I, whether ego or essence. It is like I know it is I because I am it. There is nothing else that is I. It is the sense of complete subjectivity. It is like recognizing the subject that is I, which turns out to be the absolute. In other words, the absolute is both my nature and my identity. It is the nature of the soul and her very identity. It constitutes her manifestations but it is also her depth and deepest essence. Alternatively, we can say the absolute is our true self, our objectively actual self. But it is also the nature of the soul. That is why we like to refer to the absolute as ipseity, for the word ipseity means both nature and self. To recognize the absolute as ipseity is a profound experience, for it is the self-realization of this dimension of true nature. The Inner Journey Home, pg.406

End of the Search

When the soul arrives at her absolute home, recognizes her true beloved, and realizes it as her ipseity, many insights, realizations, and feelings spontaneously arise. One’s life begins to show its overall pattern, seen from the perspective of the inner journey home. This culminates in the personalization of the absolute ipseity, where we learn to be a human being, a person, and to still abide in the absolute. This is an unusual and rarely known realization, where the vastness of the mystery, without ceasing to be the mystery, finds itself walking with two legs, touching with human hands, speaking with a mouth, and so on. (For the details of this process of personalization, see The Pearl Beyond Price, chapter 38.) At this point the soul is surprised by new feelings and realizations that occur spontaneously, as if brought home by the power of the self-realization. What spontaneously arises, without self-reflection or reasoning, is the feeling that the soul is at the end of a certain phase of life and work. She feels she has accomplished the task she had set for herself, or is in the last stages of finishing it. She recognizes her worldly accomplishments and her realization of her true nature. But the feeling is more general than the specific accomplishments. It is a sense of finishing something. There is a feeling of space or room left, open for new possibilities. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 407