After certain intense spiritual experiences, a question kept echoing in me: After death, is there not pure self-awareness—whatever form the self takes—unlike deep sleep, where there’s no self-awareness? This wasn’t just a philosophical question. I had experienced something that wouldn’t let me rest until it found articulation.
There was a dream visitation from a departed soul. It wasn’t visual or physical but felt like a deeply encoded presence. It carried its individuality from its lifetime, but in a form that was compacted, compressed, like darkness itself. Glistening darkness. As if its entire personality had been shrunk into a concentrated essence. A mascara-like, subtle blackness—a self folded into itself.
It asked me, confused: Is this liberation?
It felt to me as if that soul wanted to escape out of that encoded envelope. And I noticed something else—the state of that soul was entirely different from my own awakening experience. In my deepest moment of inner realization, I had experienced a self that was one with mental formations, like waves in a vast ocean. But those waves were not separate from the Self. They were the Self. That was light. That was bliss. That was ultimate.
And yet, I must admit: that wasn’t the pure Self. It was the Self with content. An ocean full of shimmering movement. I did not experience the ocean without waves. And that makes a difference.
When I was asked by that dreamlike soul about liberation, I found myself unable to describe the real nature of the pure Self—because I myself hadn’t achieved it. I had only experienced a vastness filled with blissful movement. I had not yet known the silence beyond even bliss. I only replied that it is not light and it seems compressed and stressed although it was infinitely vast and dark sky. Probably as I remember I advised it to move further ahead to light just guessing from my own experience as I had moved ahead and ahead in yoga to reach awakening. It had also told that it used to be afraid of death in vain but this state is not so called death like and it feels it is good enough and living like.
Still, my sadhana continues. I do advanced kundalini yoga. My meditation image is often the soul or essence of a departed one, the one closest or nearest in relation to it. It feels like this in itself becomes a prayer—an automatic offering beyond words to help it to be liberated if it is lingering somewhere inbetween. There’s something deeply natural in that.
But one doubt remained. In that visitation, I had seen darkness—the kind that doesn’t feel evil, but also doesn’t feel free. Yet, I realized: pure awareness cannot be called dark. Neither can it be called light. Because both darkness and light are properties of reflective material.
Even space itself is a kind of material. The pure Self is not space, though space-like. It’s not dark, not luminous. When we call it “self-luminous,” it makes the mind think of it like some glowing thing. But it isn’t.
“Self-luminous” is just a pointer. It simply means: it knows itself without help. It doesn’t reflect. It doesn’t shine on. It doesn’t receive light. It simply is.
It is awareness being aware. But not in the way we usually think of “being aware.”
I recalled the Upanishadic truth:
“It is not known by the mind, but by which the mind is known.”
“It shines not, neither sun, nor moon, nor fire. It alone gives light to all. By its light all else is seen.”
These statements aren’t about light. They’re about presence prior to perception.
And then something beautiful settled into my understanding. I realized that metaphors can help if used delicately. And some traditional metaphors suddenly made deep sense to me:
1. The Mirror That Reflects Nothing
Like a mirror that reflects no object—but remains the potential to reflect. Still. Unmoving. Unused. That’s the Self.
2. The Eye That Sees But Cannot See Itself
It sees all, but can’t become its own object. Like awareness. It knows all, but is never an object of knowing.
3. The Silence Behind All Sound
Sound comes and goes, but silence remains. Not silent as absence, but as eternal background.
4. The Sky Untouched by Clouds
Clouds come and go. Sky remains. Not even made of space. Self is subtler than space.
5. A Flame That Doesn’t Burn
Like the idea of flame without heat or glow. No wick, no oil. Just presence without quality.
These helped me not as knowledge, but as living orientation.
Still, I find that when the mental waves subside, the bliss subsides too. That ultimate peak cannot be held by force. And yet, that doesn’t feel like a failure anymore. It feels like a natural return.
What I experienced was likely Savikalpa Samadhi—where Self and waves are one. Blissful, yes. Transformative, yes. But not final. Not the ocean without waves. Not the pure Self beyond even bliss.
There’s still something lacking. I don’t pretend to have reached the final goal. The experience felt like the peak of existence, the ultimate moment of union. But I know that I haven’t merged into the unconditioned ocean of pure awareness.
What remains then is trust. Gentle remembrance. Resting. Not trying to grab the ocean. Just to be the presence that always was.
I let this be my guide:
“I am that which saw the waves. Let me rest as that.”
This means: I am not the movement, not even the blissful play of awakening. I am the witnessing reality behind it—the one that never moves, never becomes. The one that knows even the subtlest wave is still an appearance in Me.
Sometimes I forget to stay aware of who I really am. But even in that forgotten state, I can still see the reflection of my true self—sometimes in my own hand or face—because everything, even this body, holds the whole within it, like a hologram. This simple recognition instantly brings me back to awareness, without effort. So whenever I drift, I gently return—again and again—knowing that even the forgetting happens inside that same awareness.
That is the path now. Not chasing light. Not escaping darkness. Just resting in That which is neither—and beyond.
Demystifying Kundalini 