Introduction
Almaas describes how his participation in the Unfolding manifestation of Being ushers him into realms that expose and transform increasingly deep ego structures and attachments. Luminous Night's Journey clarifies how the unveiling of Being and the exposure of Ego Structures constitute one process, leading to the soul's integrated realization of Absolute Nature and the manifestation of the human being as a Personal Embodiment of that nature.
Most serious spiritual writings focus on the process of realization of true nature, the absolute or divine essence. This is the ultimate nature and source of ourselves and of everything.
The thread I follow in this book sheds light on the obscure process of how the soul, the individual consciousness, becomes integrated into this absolute nature, as and after the source of all experience is realized.
I want to relate my experience and understanding of the fact that individual consciousness does not merely die away or get discarded, and to describe how it becomes clarified and integrated.
This integration turns out to be the process through which the absolute manifests as an individual human being who embodies this ultimate truth in a personal life in the world.
Chapter One — Intimacy
I can feel the psychic layers that I have taken on from students peeling off, one by one. As each layer peels away, it reveals its content—emotions, thoughts, images, physical tensions. This process leaves me clearer and lighter. The lightness opens further, revealing spaciousness.
Consciousness manifests as empty, transparent space, light and clean. In this spaciousness my own thoughts and feelings appear: a constellation of thoughts and subtle feelings, all related to images and impressions about my identity, about who I am. This psychic cluster, like a cloud in the spaciousness of mind, provides the mind with the familiar feeling of identity, an identity totally dependent on memories of my past experience. Contemplating the totality of the cluster, without taking an inner position about it, I recognize that it is a mental phenomenon.
On seeing this, I become distinctly aware that it is external to me. The feeling-recognition is: "this is not me."
Clarity, space, stillness and lucidity bring a sense of a crisp cloudless sky around a snow-capped mountain top.
In the lucidity of space, a question appears, carefree and delighted: "And what is me?" Nothing recognizable by memory. I experience myself, without a feeling of self, as the simplicity of presence, which is now a simplicity of perception, a bare witnessing.
In the simplicity of presence, time does not pass, for the sense of the passage of time is simply the continuity of the feeling of the familiar identity. Simplicity of presence, when it is complete, is timelessness. Timelessness is completely being the simplicity of presence. Timelessness is not an idea, a thought in the mind.
There is immaculate, glistening emptiness, but the emptiness has a sense of depth. The depth seems to be the felt aspect of the blackness of space. It is like looking into, and feeling into, starless deep space.
The depth, although void, has a soft texture, an exquisite gentleness. There is a sense of comfort, safety and a carefree trust, as if the vastness of intergalactic space has mysteriously evolved into a gentle and loving medium. It is not a cold space, not an impersonal space, but a space that feels exactly like what the human soul has perennially longed for: the warmth of mother's breasts, the softness of delicate velvet, a quiet shining blissfulness and an endless generosity.
The more I recognize that intimacy is a quality of spacious consciousness, the more distinctly I know it: velvet-fine openness, deep spaciousness, delicate softness, sweet stillness.
The chest has become an entrance into an exquisitely heartful night sky. All of this distills itself into something unique and utterly human: intimacy. It is as if the space is a refined consciousness intimately in contact with its very nature at each point of its spaciousness.
And this total openness and contact becomes an intimacy with everything, totally independent of mind and memory. No loneliness and no sense of aloneness. Simplicity of Being has ushered me, through the door of aloneness, into its inherent intimacy.
Chapter Two — The Personal Trap
For a long time my inner experience has included a dimension that can best be described as alchemical. "Alchemical" describes the sense of my own presence as different substantial qualities which transform. It began when I first discovered that I could experience presence instead of only feelings and thoughts. I saw also that I could experience this presence as the substantial existence of various inner forms.
The presence sometimes takes the form of naturally occurring substances, like lead, iron, gold, mercury, wood, water, air, clouds, bone, diamonds, pearls, and so on.
The experience is not exactly the same as seeing or touching these naturally occurring manifestations, but of qualities of consciousness that take forms that feel or look like these phenomena. I experience inner sensations of texture and temperature, taste, sight and sound, which correspond exactly to the naturally manifesting substances, although it is clear that they are manifestations of consciousness.
This kind of experience is unusual in our everyday awareness, but this realm of experience becomes available at a certain depth of spiritual development, and in time becomes a normal part of ongoing experience. This dimension of perception greatly enriches our understanding, and endows it with a definiteness and precision not available in normal experience, for each form expresses a specific meaning.
The throbbing sensation at the forehead, indicating the presence of nous, begins to luminate, a lumination that translates into precise understanding of what I am experiencing.
The nous has the capacity to integrate elements of knowledge, from past understanding and present experience, in all known dimensions of experience, and synthesize the various elements into an insight that illuminates what I am investigating at the moment. This is not a thinking process, although logical thinking is one facet of it. It is the functioning of discriminating intelligence using all capacities of knowing and understanding inherent to consciousness, simultaneously as one act.
In the language of substantial or alchemical forms of consciousness, the pearl signifies personalness of experience. The pearl form appears both on the ego and essential dimensions of experience, always indicating a personal manifestation. Specifically, the pearl as a form of consciousness indicates the presence of the total individuality, the presence of the person in his wholeness, whether on the ego level or the essential level of Being. The pearl appears as a sphere of compact consciousness that possesses a pearly sheen.
Chapter Three — The Impersonal
I am a silent witness, vast and unchanging, beyond time and all space. I am absolutely still, totally uninvolved, but completely aware. This demonstrates directly that I do not need to be freed or enlightened. I am always free, always have been and always will be. Also, I cannot be trapped, for my very identity is totally detached awareness. I can see my personal life as a drama that I do not have to be involved in. It is like a movie that has a beginning and an end, but it is not me. I feel distant from everything, but acutely aware of everything.
Developing one's personal role and work is the same thing as the maturation and individuation of the personal consciousness. This development coincides with the realization of the personal essence, the pearl that Being develops through the friction of the life process.
Chapter Four — Objective Sorrow
I see the ego state clearly now: an empty shell, which usually indicates the falseness of taking myself to be an image, instead of merely being.
There is no motivation for doing anything, even helping. Nevertheless, there is selfless helping, because the truth is the source of love and compassion. I cannot help being helpful, because it is my nature to be a source of generosity and giving. The crystalline voidness is complete absence of self-centeredness, and this is the essence of selfless generosity.
Chapter Five — End of the World
Feeling its emptiness, consciousness totally disappears, with no awareness left. In other words, contemplating the sense of emptiness coemergent with the presence, consciousness ceases. When consciousness returns it has the fresh and precise clarity of the faceted form. The understanding which manifests does not feel separate from the sharp, faceted presence. The precise faceted form of presence discloses itself as the precise understanding of cessation, the annihilation of consciousness.
This world that the ego-self knows and inhabits is truly a mental world, a dream. As this understanding arises, the black diamond presence expands, filling the house with a magnificent peace. I have subtle glimpses of the real world, but it appears shrouded in mystery.
The creative dynamism of Being unveils its various perfections in an inherent pattern. This pattern discloses an order that satisfies my explorations, at the same time transforming my experience of myself and the world.
Chapter Six
I am not only an enchanted captive audience, not only a responsive recipient of Being's transubstantiating grace, but also a happy participant.
My love for the truth quickens Being's dynamic creativity. This love, sometimes passionate and consuming, sometimes serene and mature, expresses itself as appreciation, openness and surrender to whatever form or formlessness in which Being presences itself. This love deepens my natural curiosity, which manifests as playful but serious exploration, in an inquiry which often takes the form of fundamental questions about existence, but is at the same time passionately personal.
There is mystery all around me. I feel a profound sense of ignorance. I wonder about life and death, about the life of the body, about everything that I have thought naively and arrogantly that I know. I realize that all life, and all objects and processes in life, are full of mystery. I do not really know anything.
The not knowing is not threatening. I accept it with a sense of wonder and bafflement. The center of the operation of the nous, at the forehead, feels like an open window, transparent and clear.
It is clear to my understanding that the ordinary knowledge of the world, the knowledge put together by memory and thought, veils the luminosity of appearances, and makes the various forms appear opaque. This opaqueness obstructs the perception of the underlying reality of the forms, by eliminating their inherent transparency.
Thus the world is solidified into something inert and dismembered.
And when the opaqueness is dispersed, through understanding its sources, perception beholds shapes and colors that reveal a reality so pure, so fresh, so new and undefiled that consciousness is totally transported, as if seared from within by a cool Arctic wind.
What I behold baffles the mind, shatters it and enchants it beyond all knowing: The universe is one infinite perfect crystal, totally transparent, and absolutely clear. A density and immensity beyond comprehension, a solidity infinitely more fundamental than physical matter.
The reality of the world is a solid transparency, a compact emptiness so clear it feels like the total absence of any sensation.
This sheer clarity, this solid void, is so empty of mind and concept that it feels exhilaratingly fresh, so uncorrupted that it strikes me as the very essence of innocence.
It is the virgin reality, before mind arises, before thought knows, before memory is born.
No mind is a freshness,
A sun of ice,
Radiating brilliant clarity.
This coolness, that seems to pervade all of consciousness, is identical to the feeling of freshness, of newness, of virginity, of purity, of innocence. It is the total ecstasy of clarity.
Chapter Seven — The Absolute
For several months, I have known it as a colorless transparent crystalline consciousness that is simultaneously clear presence and emptiness. Yet at this moment, when it expands to the maximum, it appears totally dark.
The final effect is that the clear nonconceptual presence has transformed into a black nonconceptual presence. The blackness is not exactly a color, but rather the absence of color, like one would imagine intergalactic space before there were stars.
I now experience my identity, which is the nature of everything, as a crystal black absence. I feel myself, my existence, as the immensity of presence, absolutely dense and infinitely deep.
Yet this immensity and density feels totally light and weightless, completely devoid of any sensation. It is so empty it is total absence. It is nothing, but at the same time it is dense presence. To describe it exactly, it is radiant black crystalline dense absence.
As Being continues to manifest as its absolute nature, I begin to understand how functioning and doing happen. Whatever I do, I do with total lack of self consciousness. There is absolutely no premeditation. The action and the awareness of the action happen simultaneously, inseparably. Taking the action and the perception of taking the action are the same experience. I recognize this as spontaneous functioning. When functioning occurs without self-consciousness it is completely spontaneous.
Chapter Eight — Mystical Poverty
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.
It becomes clear that the turbidity and obscuration in this soul structure is due to a constellation of desires, impulses, needs and wants.
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.
It is Being that possesses existence, reality, intelligence, qualities, capacities, and so on. I, the individual self, have these available to me only when I am open to Being. On my own, I am absolutely indigent, totally helpless, completely hopeless, thoroughly inadequate. I am nothing but a limp, empty bag.
I have estranged myself, throughout most of my life, from the source of all meaning and nourishment, with the ego-pride that I have, that I possess, that I do, that I accomplish, that I exist. What a lie, and what a shame! I am sad, but also willing to accept the truth of my situation. I embrace my total emptiness. I welcome my complete, fundamental poverty. I have nothing. I do nothing. I am nothing.
The state becomes a sense of having nothing, being nothing, feeling nothing, perceiving nothing. Darkness deepens, blackness fills awareness. At this point, I notice that the indigent emptiness is no longer indigent; I experience it now as an endlessness of peace, an infinity of release, and a completeness of rest.
The poverty is nothing but the inexhaustible void, which I have misunderstood by experiencing it through the lie of my independent existence and capacity. As I, the individual self, accept my poverty and relinquish my hold, I in effect accept and embrace the complete voidness of the absolute. Here, I recognize that I am the absolute depth of Being, the source of all plenums. The infinity of silence is what remains: luminous stillness, absolute transparency, and indescribable intimacy.
Vast black sadness,
Hot ocean of tears.
Then,
The unknowable void.
Chapter Nine — The Beloved
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. The love appears after the longing, as if the longing has been hiding it. The love first manifests as an exquisitely faceted form of presence, a form that combines all aspects of essence in one manifestation. I feel it as intense, pure and selfless love, of various flavors and colors. The sweetness is heavenly, and the appreciation feels so pure it has a sense of divinity.
By divine being I refer to the unity of being, when the experience is of everything, the whole universe in all of its content and dimensions, as pure consciousness, pure presence or pure love. This is a state of oneness and harmony, the state of the real world, but I differentiate it from the experience of the absolute, which is transcendent to presence and consciousness, and turns out to be the inner essence of the state of oneness.
This is amazing; the person of ego, when denuded of all defense and pretense, turns out to be a true lover of the Truth. It is a healing surprise.
Through my turning towards the absolute, and loving it exclusively, risking the loss of the divine being and the unity of existence, the absolute reveals itself as the inner nature of this unity.
The immense silence discloses itself as the self of the divine being. I recognize that what I love most is the essence of the divine, the very self of god. It is the divine ipseity, the self of everything: absolute blackness, complete annihilation, beyond being and nonbeing.
The absolute is majesty; when it manifests its crystal brilliancy it also has beauty. The beauty evokes passionate love; the crystal form of love attains a deep pomegranate color.
The feeling is more than love; it is more like bedazzlement. The beauty bedazzles and enchants. I feel a deep devotional and passionate love, and desire for it to take me and completely annihilate me. That is what I have always wanted.
A subtle understanding further illuminates my situation. I see that when I feel increasing longing, devotion and love I become more identified as the person, the one who longs. As the longing person I am only a shell over the mystery, veiling it even while longing for it. In other words, even by loving the absolute I assert myself, as the individual, and thus become a veil over what I love.
To completely have the beloved, my love must annihilate me totally. I can have the beloved when only the beloved is.
Do I love the absolute, or does the absolute love me? The passionate love is the intensity of the annihilating power of the absolute as it erases all but itself. I, as the soul, behold the absolute appearing in the heart, occupying it as its rightful resident. The heart beholds the absolute as the most beautiful thing my eyes have ever beheld. It is dazzling and intoxicating, so black it is brilliant with blackness. It is nothing, but it shimmers and shines in such a dazzling way that I can see it has a crystalline quality. It is an infinite black crystal absence, brilliantly shimmering. The radiance is so bright it illuminates the cave of the heart the way a lightning storm illuminates the night. The lightning illumination ricochets in the cavern of the heart with such power I can hear it thundering and exploding.
The beloved now claims the heart fully. It has taken full possession of it, as its own throne. The beloved is not an other, it is the true dweller of the heart, my source, my ultimate self, and the ultimate essence of everything.
He is the guest,
And he arrives
Only at night.
Chapter Ten — Ripening Of The Soul
It is clear that what is left of the process of realization is a matter of refinement, stabilization and actualization in life, which is a continuing process. Discovery has done its job; it has lead my consciousness to its final abode, to its source. Now it is only a matter of integration, of learning to live from home.
The peace and contentment develop into a sense of fulfillment, as the consciousness attains a nectary fluidity, with the sweetness and aroma of apricot nectar. I feel a sense of maturation, not in terms of capacity, but in the sense of ripening. The fulfilled consciousness becomes a ripening when I experience the soul not only pliant and nectary, but full and sweet, just like a very ripe apricot. The whole soul becomes a heart, a heart full of the most flavorful apricot nectar.
Chapter Eleven — The Mystical Marriage
Death seems to coincide with both intimacy and aloneness. The mysterious blackness of death brings aloneness and intimacy together, joining them into one quality. There is a sweet and delicate intimacy in the heart as I contemplate death and see the presence of blackness.
Contemplating the intimacy and sweetness pervading my chest, I realize that my body has lost its usual boundaries; it is now all of existence. I am the room, everything in the room, and everything beyond the room, all as one presence. The sense of what I am is an immense, adamantine crystal presence, an indivisible totality. This totality which I experience as my body is all of the universe.
Aware of the absolute as the depth, the ground, the nature of everything, I see this luminous blackness holding everyone, and holding the dining table we are sitting around.
I am both the silent vastness and the individual alive presence, but they are one. This perception is difficult to describe; I am the soul loving the absolute, which is my source, nature and home. The absolute is much larger than the soul, infinite; and the soul is a delicate formation out of it, an extension of it. The soul is almost like an image on its surface. And I am both the individual soul and the infinite absolute, paradoxically comprehended as one. The two are so inseparably one, as if the absolute is the body and the soul the face of the body. The soul is very delicate, transparent and very much part of the absolute.
Chapter Twelve — Coemergence
To realize the absolute with its emptiness and mysterious light is not the only possibility. The next step is to be a human person, without losing the realization of the absolute.
I am aware of soul, aware that I am not only experiencing the purity of the Absolute, because there is a subtle perception of a completely clear and translucent bubble of awareness. Along with the indescribable lightness and spaciousness and inseparable from it, I experience a presence that looks almost like a mirage, an illusory body.
I perceive myself as a bubble connected with the other bubbles. But the bubble is clear and translucent, transparent. It is also completely coextensive and co-emergent with the spaceless emptiness of the Absolute.
The soul is a bubble of awareness, and all of the environment is composed of the same translucent clarity, a mere patterned radiance within the blackness and inseparable from it.
Chapter Thirteen — Absolute Action
The Absolute is indeterminate intimacy, the essence of being. The sense of intimacy comes from the transparency co-emergent with centerless knowingness.
I am totally in touch with myself at each point of my presence with no veils. In this complete in-touchness, there is a sense of privacy, of interiority. This delicate interiority is the essence of intimacy. There is no subject being intimate with an object; In fact, there is nothing to be intimate with. Intimacy is merely the condition of total in-touchness.
Chapter Fourteen — Life and the Deathless
I am both a dynamic embodied presence and a translucent witnessing background, simultaneously. These manifestations are completely co-emergent. The experience is very mysterious and totally confounding to the mind.
