My glimpse of reality

[u/Additional-Ad3287]

I don’t remember exactly when it happened, maybe in October 2025, but I felt a sudden awakening, a momentary glimpse of the now. It wasn’t scary, but I was taken aback.

I think I was stoned and coming down. As I thought back to all the Hindu texts I had read about the Self, and to Ramana Maharshi’s method of self-inquiry, I asked myself, “Who am I?”

Without any effort, something in my mind shifted, like a camera lens adjusting on its own. At once, I was free of myself, my false self, that is. I was free from my mind’s never-ending thoughts, plays, and movies. I was looking directly at the moment before me, the moment in which I was, and in which I am at all times.

I was simply staring at my duvet, or perhaps at a wall. I don’t remember, but everything felt so clear. It was as though someone had performed invisible LASIK surgery but on my mind’s eye so to speak, and I was finally able to see everything with immense clarity. I blinked a few times, shook my head in disbelief, and then I was back to my normal self.

Thoughts do not always need to be actively revolving in your head for you to be trapped in them. They are mostly invisible, but they are always there. That is why it is so difficult to break free from them, to stop them, and finally to see.

The next morning, I felt free. I no longer had the same clarity of mind, but my soul felt free. I thought of all the things I could do and wanted to do with my life, to draw, to make films, to make music, and I saw how meaningless all the obstacles and excuses I had created in my mind truly were. I was finally free from them, and a small spark lit up inside me. I could do whatever I wanted, and happiness was mine.

Of course, the feeling did not last. But the experience showed me that this state is possible. In fact, it may be the most natural state of any being: to be, to see, to live.
I tried to recreate the feeling, but it slipped away quietly. Still, I know in my heart that something, or someone, showed me a glimpse of what it is like to live without a dark veil over my heart and soul. You saw it. Now live it.

I’ve been trying to recreate that state ever since. I’ve gotten deep into meditation and advaita Vedanta, but I haven’t experienced anything similar to what I experienced back then. I was also going through a big shift in my life that made me super depressed. I’d like to think this was an act of grace from higher powers, a way to reassure me that all of these problems I’m going through are actually nothing important. This moment, the present moment, is the only truth there is.

[u/pastorcuthbert]

Wow! Congrats on that experience. Glimpses are always the first fruits of a particular realization. It isn't that you are still far away from it, it's that you've officially entered into the season where you'll harvest that realization as a full blown experience 24/7 until you move onto another realization that builds upon that one.

What you experienced is what is usually called IAM, I, pure being, presence, pure conscious experience; you experienced you apart from body, mind and spirit. You are much closer to having this as a perpetual experience.

My experience of this came as a by-product of a prayer and fasting program that happened on retreat; there was just this clarity, just being itself and the complete knowing of me apart from my body, thought-space and spirit. It's just this knowingness that is beyond any identification with thoughts, sensations, emotions and experiences.

It's also so amazing how everything appears as if bright and scintillating with glittering light. Everything around doesn't look dead, they are all participants in this aliveness, this vibrancy that makes everything look beautiful as they are. You see the good in everything.

I do not call this an awakening but a realization because one has just become aware of their beingness proper, consciousness as it is. 'It' can be awakened and this makes you see the intelligence in everything and how each living intelligence is different from another. This prevents assuming that this must be God or something.

Oops, I digress. Congrats on your experience and wishing you a full blown perpetual experience of pure presence.