Lately, I’ve been listening to the podcasts of a Turkish yoga teacher Azize Şahin, where she shares her experiences of awakening to non-dual reality. Her reflections have inspired me to revisit my own journey and to deepen my practice with more consistency.
The very first time I heard about non-duality was in 2004. I was at a Kirtan in Shine Yoga with Dave Stringer. We began chanting Shivo’ham—“I am Shiva.” The lyrics felt so familiar. I had the sensation that I could almost utter the words, yet I couldn’t. They were in Sanskrit. After the Kirtan, still under the spell of the music, I purchased the CD and tore it open under the dim studio light, looking for a translation of the lyrics. That was the first time I encountered the name Adi Shankara. I remember thinking, “Who is this sage, whose words hold such timeless wisdom and truth?” Something deep within me resonated. And just like that, my journey into Advaita Vedanta—the non-dual path—began.
Advaita, meaning "non-duality" or "no-otherness," is a school of thought within Vedanta that teaches the essential unity of all things. Just like the essence of a gold ring is gold and you can’t separate gold from the ring, our true essence is God, Pure Consciousness, or Supreme Awareness. There is no other but the Divine. Advaita asserts that we can realize this truth in this very lifetime—this liberation, or moksha, is available to us all. In fact, we are already "it".
I found this philosophy particularly resonant, as it echoed the teachings of Sufism, the mystical heart of Islam, where God is seen as present in all things and everywhere. The experience of God is not distant but immediate, intimate, and all-encompassing.
The translation of the poem by Adi Shankara, Nirvana Shatakam is like this:
i am not the mind, intellect, ego, or the thoughts.
i am not the ears, tongue, nose, or eyes
i am not the sky, earth, fire, or the air
i am the embodiment of consciousness and bliss, i am Shiva
i am neither virtue nor sin, neither happiness nor sorrow
i am not the mantras, pilgrimage, scripture, or rituals
i am neither food, nor the consumer, nor enjoyer
i am the embodiment of consciousness and bliss, i am Shiva
i am the unprecedented, supreme eternal self-illuminating light
i am the purest limitless space, the eternal unchanging bliss
i am beyond thoughts and formlessness
i exists everywhere and in all senses
i am not limited to association, liberation, or known objects
i am the embodiment of consciousness and bliss, i am Shiva
The next summer in 2005, I went to India with a group of Turkish Yoga Teachers. Their guru, N.V Raghuram, was our guide in the Himalayas. Raghuram is a retired engineer, a yoga master, and a professor at the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation, a yoga university in India. A few weeks before the trip, he told us that we would be studying the Mandukya Upanishad in India.
Upanishads are the collection of ancient spiritual texts exploring universal truths. Mandukya Upanishad, in particular, is a very short, yet deeply transformative text. It is believed that if you can fully understand and practice the wisdom contained in the twelve verses of Mandukya Upanishad, you need nothing else to attain enlightenment. "That’s sweet," I thought, "This will be very easy".
I first read this one-page text with great enthusiasm. It seemed perfectly clear, and I thought to myself, “This will be very easy.” But then I turned to a 32-page commentary on the Maṇḍūkya Upaniṣad by Swami Krishnananda and quickly realized there was far more to absorb than I had imagined. Later, during our stay in India, we studied it extensively, and its layers began to unfold.
The text describes the Imperishable OM (AUM), which represents the entire universe. Each syllable of AUM is symbolic: A stands for the waking state, U for dreams, M for deep sleep, and the silence represents the space where all dissolves into. The teaching invites us to maintain that silence and be aware of it—to embody Awareness at all times.. As simple as it sounds, this practice was far from easy. I got it conceptually, but I didn't know how to practice it. That was my only question to Raghuram at the end of our trip. He said, "be aware of every moment, day and night, while awake and in sleep, 24/7.", He said, "That's the way to practice". I remember trying to be fully aware of every moment of the day and during sleep. I had lucid dreams, and I became a zombie in just a few days. I think I took it to an extreme, so much so that I was frustrated to the point of quitting. I quit too soon, being impatient. It seems impossible. I didn't realize I needed to build up the practice little by little.
The ashram that we stayed in Rishikesh, was the ashram of Swami Dayananda, a renowned Vedanta master. I loaded up his books and commentaries on Vedanta.
I especially liked the illuminating interpretation of a specific mantra by Swami Dayananda.
“Poornamadah Poornamidam
Poornaat Poornamudachyate
Poornasya Poornamaadaaya
Poornamevaavashishṣyate”
“Completeness is that, completeness is this.
From completeness, completeness comes forth.
Completeness from completeness taken away,
Completeness to completeness added,
Completeness alone remains. “
All is perfect, all is perfect as is!
My fascination with Vedanta only deepened. Meeting Swami Tadatmananda at a Cincinnati Yoga Teachers Association event in Cincinnati in 2006 was a profound experience—his clarity and depth of understanding left a lasting impression. He was surprised to hear that I stayed at Dayananda Ashram in Rishikesh, his Guru’s ashram, the year before. Nothing is a coincidence!
I had long hoped to visit Ramesh Balsekar, another renowned Vedanta teacher, but sadly, he passed away in 2009 before I could make the journey to his Mumbai home in India. I don’t know how many times I watched his rare interviews on YouTube, published by the Advaita Fellowship—each viewing brought new insights.
The next big Advaita moment came in June 2015. I was recently diagnosed with cancer a few months ago. We were at a Reiki Retreat at Transfiguration Center in Cincinnati with our Reiki gang and our teacher, Frans Stiene. I was still evaluating treatment options and simultaneously working on my healing at all levels. I was scared and emotionally vulnerable. At that time, my dear friend Sundar Kadayam had an awakening experience a few months ago and was developing an exploration of awareness of Oneness through guided meditation. He said "That is enough suffering" and he led me through a guided meditation step by step, leading me from fear, worry, and anxiety to experientially recognizing my expansive true self. I was in awe. Was it that easy? I never forgot that experience but I could not integrate it into my life either. Sundar later wrote his first book, "Awaken" to help others experientially explore their true selves.
Over the years, I continued to include witness consciousness and expansion to my meditations, even if it didn't come naturally, I was faking until I make it.
I heard of Rupert Spira in 2016 for the first time and started listening to his meditations occasionally. I participated in a 4-day online live meditation retreat with him in June 2020. It felt like a safe haven during Covid days. He and Mooji were becoming my resources for meditations.
I also used the Insight Timer app on and off for years, setting it to chime every 15 minutes throughout the day. Often, I would miss the reminders, but whenever I caught one, I paused whatever I was doing and took three conscious breaths. With the first breath, I checked my body and released any tension. With the second, I observed my mind. With the third, I added a positive affirmation.
Looking back, I see that one mistake I made was holding on to a sense of self-identity while witnessing the ordinary reality. I should have let go and simply rested as awareness itself, awareness being aware of itself. That understanding came much later. More recently, I began using the same app with this deeper intention—receiving reminders not just to pause, but to return to the one who is aware of awareness.
Then came the sacred medicine experiences, Grandmother and Grandfather in 2019 and 2022, respectively. The first one reminded me I was already “it”. I was looking for the Truth, and it reminded me that I was the Truth itself. I just needed to take a step backward, remove myself from ordinary reality, to be the luminous, expansive self.
However, looking back now, even though it was an amazingly empowering experience and I had experienced a timeless expansion, there was still an "I".
As for the Grandfather, I need to separate the pure experience from the emergence of the self within the experience. Within the pure experience, there was no material existence at all. There was no "I" or anything that identified with an "I". There was no body, no mind, no thought or any memory of any existence ever. There was no memory that there once was a material existence, in the form of an "I" or an Earth or even a Universe. It was as if none of this material world ever existed. There was only awareness, and it was aware of the experience, which was freedom and immeasurable peace.
This is what I wrote immediately after the experience:
“I am in this timeless time and spaceless space. In fact, there is nothing to call an “I” but a lack of a better word. There is only the "experience itself". There is no body or mind but simply consciousness. There is also no memory that there was once a body and a mind. There is weightlessness, not only physically but also mentally. Not only are there no thoughts, but also an incredible freedom of not having a mental presence, not even the slightest shadow of it, or even a single memory that a presence was once there. It is as if this Universe never existed. As if this 14 billion years of existence were only a dream, but not even being remembered. There is no experiencer of all this either, but only weightless freedom and presence of the “now” and an awareness of that freedom and the immeasurable peace that comes with it.”
However, while this experience was going on, just like a bubble rising from the depths of a swamp, a subtle awareness emerged out of nowhere.This awareness was loosely associated with a separate sense of an "I", as myself. And at the moment the sense of an "I" appeared, I had a knowing that "I" was faced with a decision.
I was at a threshold: To stay here in this eternal joy or to come back to the world. I knew I had the option of not coming back, but.I also knew that staying here meant “death”.
When this thought arose, personification got stronger. I remember thinking that if I died, I would cause trouble and sadness for a lot of people. As soon as this thought crossed my mind, in a split second, I came back to my body. That was the end of the experience.
For the next two weeks, I tried to ground myself back into earthly reality. This existence felt so heavy compared to the lightness of the “experience.” At first, my connection to the world was very loose—I still felt expanded—yet it grew stronger as I practiced grounding breathwork, yoga, and followed a more earthly diet.I documented the experience. My memory of it was vivid, but I didn’t know how to integrate it. It remained something to long for, an experience I couldn’t replicate.
Finally, during a Reiki retreat in April 2025, I was able to integrate it—at least partially. Now, I can return to that state at will, but only for a few minutes before I am pulled back into this world.
I still wonder: how can I truly live in that state while continuing a worldly life?
That’s why I wanted to document my journey as a way of committing myself to the practice. I know it can be done. Now that I'm inspired to try again, I will commit to stepping back and being aware of being aware.
I only need practice, patience, and perseverance, and non-attachment to the result. The rest will come with Grace.
