"A lot has been said about the Illuminating Void. We will, of course, be able to experience it, and in this emptiness we will discover the Laws of Nature. We can see these laws not in the way we normally see them, but the way they really are. In this physical world we can see figures from outside, but can we see them as they really are within, or from the sides, etc.? In the Illuminating Void we can know the Truth as it really is and not the way it appears to us. We can experience the Truth of an ant, a world, a sun, a comet, etc.

The Essence submerged in the Illuminating Void perceives with its spatial sense everything that was, is, and will be. Her radiations will reach the personality and the mind. It is interesting to know that while the Essence is submerged in the Illuminating Void, it experiences Reality. The emotional and motor centers will integrate with the intellectual center, and the receptive mind will capture the information received by the Essence, for that reason the information is accumulated in the intellectual center; thus, we do not lose it when the Essence comes out of the Illuminating Void and penetrates the personality.

It has been said that to obtain Emptiness we need a suction pump. We have that pump in the spine in the channels Ida and Pingala used by the Creative Energy to reach the brain. Also it has been said that we need a dynamo; we have one in our brain and willpower. It is obvious that we also need a generator. Fortunately this is the Procreative Organs (the sexual organs and willpower).

Having the system and elements, we can reach the Luminous Emptiness; the pump, the dynamo and the generator are the elements we need to reach the Illuminating Void in our meditations. Only through the Illuminating Void can we know Reality, but it is necessary that the Essence penetrates the Absolute Emptiness.

In the old texts, they talk a lot about the Holy Okidanokh: Omnipresent, Omnipenetrating, and Omniscient. He comes from the Sacred Absolute Sun. How can we know truly the Holy Okidanokh if we cannot penetrate the Luminous Emptiness? It is well known that the Holy Okidanokh is within the Illuminating Void; it is one with the Great Emptiness.

When you are in ecstasy, you surpass personality; when you are inside of the Luminous Void and experience the Reality of the Holy Okidanokh, you are one with the leaves, the water... you live everything that exists, the only thing you need is courage so you do not lose the ecstasy, because when one feels that one is diluted in everything and feels that one is everything, one experiences the fear of annihilation.

One thinks: “Where am I? Why am I everywhere?” Reasoning comes and one can lose the ecstasy returning to the trap again, enclosed again by the personality; but if one has courage, one does not lose his ecstasy.

At this moment, one is like a drop that is submerged in the ocean, but one has to realize that the ocean is submerged in the drop as well. You will feel you are a bird flying, a deep forest, a petal of a flower, the children who play with a butterfly, an elephant, etc. This situation brings terror and you can fail in your meditation.

It is indeed in the Sacred Absolute Sun where one comes to know the final Truth. In the Sacred Absolute Sun there is no time. There, the time factor has no existence. There, the universe is all One and the phenomena of nature takes place beyond time.

In the Sacred Absolute Sun we can live in an instant eternity. There, one lives beyond good and evil, transformed into radiant creatures.

Therefore, once one has experienced Truth, he cannot be like those whose lives are based on creed, no; there, one experiences the urgent necessity of working in the Intimate Self-Realization of one’s Being here and now.

It is one thing to experience or to truly live the Illuminating Void and another is to acheive Intimate Self-Realization. Because of this we need to know how to meditate, to learn to meditate; it is urgent to understand meditation.

I hope that you listeners will understand this, that you will practice meditation so one day you will be able to liberate the Essence and experience the Truth by yourselves. The one who is able to liberate the Essence and to enter the Illuminating Void will be distinct; he will no longer be like the others. For this you need a special course; such persons will be different, ready to fight up to the maximum with their only purpose being to realize here and now the Illuminating Void within.

In the Orient, when a disciple reaches these marvellous experiences by experiencing the Truth and comes to tell his Guru, the Guru strikes him hard with his hands; it is clear that if the disciple has not ordered his mind, then he will react against the Guru. Will he not?

However, these disciples are already well trained. Gurus do this to equilibrate the values and to test the disciple, to see how he is progressing in the elimination of his defects.

I hope that all of you have understood deeply what the Science of Meditation really is; I hope that you will practice intensively in your homes and in places of meditation.

Question: Master, how can we control the fear when we feel that we are in the Illuminating Void?

V.M. Samael Aun Weor: It is necessary to fight fear, forcing it to disintegration, until it is converted to cosmic dust. For that reason we have given you specific techniques for disintegrating your defects, using the spear and with the help of your Divine Mother. Of this, we have spoken amply in my book, “The Mystery of the Golden Blossom.”

And I can't help, after all the hours of re-reading Dhammapada, thinking that yes, Buddhism is (slightly) nihilistic