The following email arrived a few days ago:
Dear Freddie,
Months have passed since our mail exchanges, so I wanted to leave an update.
In April, I had a Kundalini experience that almost shattered me; I thought I was going to die. It was as textbook as Kundalini experiences come. Still it was an experience.
Later, in May, “something” altogether different happened. A glimpse words will never be able to convey. Something dropped without reason or apparent cause. I was peace, complete, unshakable peace not tied to any object or thought, wanting nothing, longing for nothing. It wasn’t a state, because the world could not touch me as long as the glimpse lasted, whereas states are subjected to external circumstances. Mind was present, but I truly wasn’t paying attention to thoughts, so for what was worth it could not have been there. Fear was nowhere to be found. I instantly recognized that peace as a sort of “unmasking”. In my life I’ve tried many drugs, of various kinds. So I can truly say there is no comparison. Substances produce sedation and pleasurable numbness, or strange visuals. In that moment I was truly and fully alive to myself. The glimpse was a glimpse, but since that day my process shifted in a different direction with different priorities. I now understand what you attempted to tell me, but since there is no way to communicate it with language, it was always bound to fail.
Very pleased this email has been shared. It makes a very clear distinction between what is called kundalini experience, drug experiences and true peace.
What this ‘peace’ describes for me is about what it means to be ego-free and conscious of it. Being ego-free means no person owns this peace. It is impersonal awareness.
The use of the word ‘unmasking’ is telling, as if the ego/personality is absent (which it sounds like it was).
The ‘myself’ alive to then was/is the Allness of Reality – an experience of Oneness boundless and timeless.
Thoughts may come and go, but they are no longer ‘owned’ or identified with. And ego is a thought/concept – or a bundle of them.
It is very natural for one to claim such a glimpse as happening to oneself, and want to have it again even continuously. That is the trap, because the imaginary character (ego) did not then and can never later attain Reality.
I am the one who sent the mail. You are right about the trap. Properly speaking I don’t know if the glimpse was non-dual or not: in that moment I didn’t care about definitions, thoughts and actions. I only know the individual typing this message right now, can’t claim that peace for himself in personal terms. Were I to do that, it would be a lie.