Divine Love & Love
Our five senses detect only visible forms, and through them, we perceive ourselves as humans in a physical world. However, with the aid of a powerful microscope, we can see that beyond our skins and bones, there are smaller particles of atoms, and even smaller electrons and protons. If we continue to explore beyond that, we arrive at flashes of light. This light is the presence of pure consciousness.
Almaas’s Divine Love & Light (Cosmic Consciousness or Universal Consciousness) is the embodied experience of this light as our true nature. At this level of awareness, we recognise that this light is not only at the depth of our being, but is in every person, animal, plant and all manifestations. This light connects us, and we may experience this either as being ‘a drop in the ocean’ or as being the ‘boundless ocean’ itself. Seeing through our projections of the physical world to this light is to know the creative intelligence that spontaneously changes, appears and disappears to provide through our five senses, the illusion of the manifested world. This is a radical expansion in consciousness.
On the dimension of Divine Love & Light, we are aware of our true nature and inner light and:
- continue to perceive the world through our senses
- continue to know, recognise and make sense of the world through our minds, and
- experience the fullness, richness and abundance of life through our hearts and feelings.
The soul is graceful, pure, gentle, soft, sweet and carefree for it knows at this deeper level of existence, the world is full of goodness, love, light, beauty, awe and wonderment, and that at this level of light we are always safe and secure.
Expansion to this level of consciousness requires us to dis-identify with our ego’s will, independence and individuality to experience our interconnectedness. Only after we recognise our true Divine Love & Light nature can we progress on our soul’s individuality, but this time, an individuality that is not ‘separate’ but instead our Soul’s will is now one and aligned with our creator. The soul learns to trust in this higher power which is necessary to face the challenges ahead. “She accepts that she will accept whatever happens, for it is the will of the inner truth, not hers.”*
Pure Being & Knowledge
At the previous dimension of Divine Love and Light, our senses, minds, and hearts are overflowing with stimulus. The world is perceived, recognised and experienced through all the differentiated colours, shapes, textures and qualities (represented by all the different coloured gemstones). Life is full of excitement, richness and abundance.
But as we continue further along the path towards the one Source, the dimensions of true nature become more simple, fundamental and pure. We return to the primordial soup. Expanding to higher dimensions of true nature thus involves gradually transcending all the familiar modes of human functions, capacities and experiences, until there is absolutely nothing left of ourselves at all.
On the dimension of Pure Being & Knowledge, we are aware of our true nature and inner light, and:
- continue to perceive the world through our senses, and
- continue to know, recognise and make sense of the world through our minds, but
- transcend the hearts and feelings, and no longer experience the fullness, richness and abundance of life.
We gradually lose the experience of life-on-earth as we know and recognise it. Although in this dimension, this may feel like a loss to the Soul, of their heart and humanity, it is an even more blissful, free and complete state. For now, we hold and contain all potential qualities before they are differentiated and manifested. We experience simplicity, emptiness, spaciousness and nothingness.
Whereas in the previous dimension of Divine Love & Light life is like experiencing all the colours of the rainbow. On this dimension of Pure Being & Knowledge life is like experiencing the white light itself or as Almaas describes it as “clear light because it is not a reflected light and not a refracted light. It is a self-existing light”.*
Pure Being & Knowledge can be experienced as either unity or oneness, depending on our perspective. If you perceive the inner light as the depth of your being and all manifestations, then this is the experience of unity. If you ‘take a step back’ and perceive the manifest world as a unified field, then this is the experience of oneness.
Expanding to this dimension requires complete openness and vulnerability. “This means no resistance, no defences, no separation and no isolation.”**
When the personality is completely purified, there is no longer any separation between the ego-self and the state of Pure Being, for now, they become one and the same in both ‘unity’ and ‘oneness’.
Awareness & the Nonconceptual
As we to continue to expand to even higher planes of consciousness, our sense of self and the world as we know it continues to disappear, revealing an even more fundamental Reality.
At the first dimension of Divine Love & Light, our deeply held convictions that we are human beings in a physical world is challenged. Fully integrating this dimension allows us to see through our projections and the illusion of the world to the deeper truth that we are spiritual beings.
As we expand to this third dimension of Awareness & the Nonconceptual, our beliefs are challenged yet again. This time, the perception that is challenged is not whether we are human beings or spiritual beings (at the first dimension), or even pure beings (at the second dimension), but of the sense of ‘being’ at all. For this dimension is where we transcend our minds and all memories, knowledge and concepts, including the concept of ‘being’.
On the dimension of Awareness & the Nonconceptual, we are aware of our true nature and inner light, and:
- continue to perceive the world through our senses, but
- transcend the mind, and can no longer continue to know, recognise and make sense of the world, and
- transcend the hearts and feelings, and no longer experience the fullness, richness and abundance of life.
All that remains is simple awareness through our five senses. We can ‘see, hear, smell, taste and feel’, but without our minds; we no longer have any recognition of what we are sensing, or what it means, or what it means to us. Beyond mind and concepts, there is no such thing as good or bad, right or wrong, for everything, in Reality, is, without judgement. We are ‘absolutely innocent’.
What is most striking in this dimension is the realisation that the manifest universe continues to exist even beyond our minds. It continues to instantaneously appear and disappear in all the differentiated shapes and colours that create the illusion of the physical world. “Reality is independent of our minds, and manifestations is not the creation of our thoughts”*.
Fully integrating this dimension is to gain freedom from worldly attachments, for now, we not only recognise that the world is an illusion, but the world is also beyond personal preferences! There is no such thing as wanting this over that, desiring one thing over another. With our minds free, we live freely, love openly and play spontaneous with exuberance and delight, without thought, judgement and fear.
Logos & Creative Dynamism
The inner light, at the depth of our being, and all manifestations differentiates into all the various forms, patterns, shapes, colours, tastes, flavours and so on to provide our ordinary minds with the experience of the world.
Our world is not static; it is dynamic. Without change, we could not have the experience of life. It is the creative intelligence of the Logos and Creative Dynamism that allows the pattern of the universe to flow and unfold in a meaningful, harmonious and orderly way.
The universe has “only one act: the act of continuous creation”*. It abides by the laws of nature where gravity exists; where seeds turn into trees; where the world evolves; and where souls are guided to fulfil their true nature – so that ultimately the light itself can be known.
This unified cosmic field does not ‘move’ from one place to another to create the illusion of movement, for that would imply time passing and Reality is beyond the concept of time and space. The light creates the illusion of change, similar to how a movie projector does. For example, by projecting a sequence of still images (with unnoticeable, yet incremental changes) the illusion of flying birds and time passing can be created. The light continuously and instantaneously appears and disappears into existence, into manifestation, moment to moment, always in the here-and-now.
This light can be perceived as the outflow into manifestation, and depending on the dimension and our perspective, this can be experienced in different ways.
Awareness & the Nonconceptual:
“We can see the pattern nonconceptually, without recognition of the meaning or significance of its specifics,” i.e. the level of awareness of Zen paradoxes.
Pure Being & Knowledge:
“or we can see it with knowledge and discernment of these details,”
Divine Love & Light:
“or we can see it as the force of love that generates the universe and makes the world go around.”
When we expand to this dimension, we are in touch with the creative force of life itself, and we experience ourselves as powerful, dynamic, vital and energetic. The unified cosmic field is seen as one flowing and unfolding master design, a ‘symphony’ of perfect order and harmony. In Reality “there is no contradiction, no opposition, no collision, no competition, no jostling, no confusion, no interference, and no enmity”* and “no such thing as independent action, personal choice, or volition.”*
There are no mistakes, no accidents and no one to blame. For at our very depth, we are one with the Creator manifesting the experience of people and situations to teach, awaken and guide our souls to our unlimited creative potential. The same lessons will keep on happening, disguised in different forms, until suffering forces us to learn. We cannot possibly know why things happen the way they do, but there is order and harmony in the universe.
Absolute & Emptiness
In the first four dimensions of true nature, the inner light at the depth of our being and all manifestations are recognised as our true essence. This light is the presence of consciousness, of appearing into manifestation, of ‘Being’ and of existing.
But there is one more fundamental source the Absolute & Emptiness – the source of all manifestations and where the light itself arises from.
On the dimension of the Absolute & Emptiness:
- We transcend perception, and there is no experience at all. There is the perception of the vastness and emptiness just before we lose all awareness and dissolve into the absolute… darkness…. stillness…. silence….
“We can know it, but to know it is to know it as mystery.”*
The deepest Reality of all beings is non-being; the deepest Reality of all manifestations is non-manifestation, and the deepest Reality of all existence is non-existence.
At our very depth, we are the source of existence. We are Divine in essence. This is transcendence enlightenment. Fully integrating this realisation that we are beyond manifestation is to be free from self-consciousness, for now, we are beyond any sense of self. “And without self-consciousness, there are no personal issues or conflicts, no personal suffering.”* The search has ended and we have arrived home. “Our presence becomes the exquisite gentleness…. ” and “One is ordinary and appreciates the ordinary, for the most ordinary is the simplicity of the absolute.”*
