This brilliant and luminous drink, this liquid brilliant crystalline presence, gets you drunk with awakeness as it flows into the head. But what happens when it flows into the heart? The crystalline brilliance awakens the heart. Brilliancy becomes like diamonds flowing out of the heart, very teeny little diamonds, like granulated, colored sugar. They are rainbow-colored little diamonds flowing out of the heart from the source that is Brilliancy. When the brilliant drink descends into the heart, it turns into the rainbow-colored, granulated kind of sugar. It attains sweetness, happiness, love, and light, and all the contentments of the heart, but with brilliance to them. The heart feels so happy now that it feels lighter than antigravity; you feel as if you were going to levitate. It’s not like you’re not heavy, but rather that you have lightness, the opposite of heaviness. Your heart is so light that it’s going to fly away. Fly away on what? On happiness, happiness and joy and celebration. So that’s really what awakens in the heart. – From Brilliancy: The Essence of Intelligence, ch. 13
What characterizes the actual nature of Brilliancy is its direct presence in the soul, which then manifests in the thoughts and actions of that person in the world. In the experience of the presence of Brilliancy, I experience myself not as a body with thoughts and feelings but as a palpable presence, as the very presence of some brilliantly luminous fluid. I am usually in touch with the body and its feelings and thoughts, but I am aware of myself as a sensitive fluid that pervades the body, and which feels deeper and more fundamental than the muscles and bones. And this palpable fluid, which is not really physical—even though it has texture and density like physical matter—feels like the presence of inner luminosity, like condensed brilliant light. This fluid light is so pristine, so immaculate, so true and absolutely uncreated or contaminated by mind or memory, that it has the distinct sense of being totally pure. – Brilliancy: The Essence of Intelligence, Ch. 1, p. 20
Brilliancy usually flows in the body through the cerebrospinal fluid in the spinal column. As such, it is directly involved with the nervous system and the brain, so it affects the functioning of thought. Imagine Brilliancy flowing through your synapses; imagine feeling it in your nerves. Imagine the sensation of exquisite smoothness and purity coursing through your nervous system, lighting it up, setting it ablaze with the brilliance of intelligence. Like a lubricant or a conducting substance of complete smoothness in your nervous system, Brilliancy dissolves any resistance in the nerves with its smoothness and flow, with its incredible ease, speed, and penetrating power. – A. H. Almaas, Brilliancy: The Essence of Intelligence, Ch. 1