In this reflection, I invite you to turn toward what I call the light of being. Not a mystical spectacle or a perfected persona, but the simple, pristine fact of awareness that remains when all experiences pass. This is not an idea. It is the most intimate reality of who you are.
What Is the “Light”?
When I speak of the light of being, I am not pointing to a quality you can possess, a state you can keep, or a glow you can generate. The “light” here refers to the transparency of awareness itself—empty of content, prior to thought, prior to feeling, prior even to the sense of “me.”
This light has no color and no edges. It isn’t opposed to darkness. It isn’t an achievement. It is that which is always here, the “I am” that quietly confirms existence before we name anything. Words like awareness, presence, or beingness gesture toward it, but none can capture it. Still, you can know it directly, because it is what remains when every experience changes and passes.
How It Gets Veiled
If the light of being is always here, why is it so often missed?
Because identity coagulates around the content of experience. The personality self forms as the mind references, narrates, and concludes: “This means I am this,” or “This proves I am not that.” Over time, conditioning thickens into veils—guilt, shame, unworthiness, grievance, the endless pursuit of recognition or security.
The ego is not an entity. It is a movement: an acquisitive tendency organized around lack. It reaches into the next moment for what is imagined to be missing now. It tells stories about the past and hopes for a different future. It seeks to have more so it can finally be enough. In this restless motion, the simple fact of being is overlooked.
Cracks Where Radiance Shines Through
Sometimes the veils thin. A shock, a moment of profound beauty, deep grief, or sudden stillness interrupts the narrative. The mind stops referencing. There is a directness, an immediacy without distance. In that gap, the light of being is revealed—not as an event you possess, but as the ground that was always here.
These glimpses can be catalysts. Yet attempting to recreate the experience only strengthens the seeker-self. Instead, let each glimpse point you back to the underlying reality: what you are is present before, during, and after every experience. The invitation is not to hold onto a state, but to recognize what does not come and go.
The Ordinary Revolution
Awakening is often described as sudden and also as gradual. Both are true. There can be a clear seeing that the separate self is a dream. And there can also be a gentle unwinding of old patterns over time.
Outwardly, nothing needs to change. Life continues in its ordinary rhythms—relationships, work, dishes, weather. What changes is the inner orientation. Striving to complete a lacking self gives way to openness. The compulsion to grasp or resist softens. Drama fades. Sensitivity remains, perhaps even deepens, but without the burden of emotional turbulence. A lightness enters being—a simple, unforced ease that meets each moment as it is.
This is not indifference. It is intimacy. When we are not seeking the next moment for fulfillment, we are available to this one. Love is no longer a commodity to acquire; it reveals itself as the very essence of presence.
The End of Horizontal Seeking
Much spiritual seeking is a horizontal movement: reaching toward a future moment when we will finally be worthy, pure, enlightened, loved. This movement is the seeker-self reinventing itself again and again.
The light of being is vertical—ever-present, not later. To discover it requires no distance, only a turning toward what is already here. In this recognition, hope as postponement dissolves. What remains is a quiet trust. Not hope for a better version of “me,” but trust in the immediacy of being.
A Simple Inquiry
You cannot think your way into this. But you can look.
Notice a thought as it appears. It passes.
Notice a feeling as it swells. It passes.
Notice a sensation as it flickers. It passes.
Notice a scene as your eyes move. It passes.
What remains when each passing experience is gone? Not as an abstract answer, but as a direct recognition. There is a knowing of being that does not come and go. It is silent, transparent, already complete. Call it awareness, presence, beingness—or don’t call it anything. It is prior to the words.
Let this be a gentle, ongoing contemplation. Not a technique to master, but a sincere curiosity you return to in the midst of your actual life—while you breathe, listen, walk, wash dishes, or sit with a friend. Everything that appears will pass. The light that knows it does not.
Living the Light
What does it mean to embody this recognition in daily life?
It begins with a softening of the grasping tendency. Instead of moving from a sense of lack, decisions and actions arise more naturally from care. The restless self-referencing mind grows quieter, and experience is met directly, without the constant narration about “me.”
What once carried the heavy weight of drama gives way to a deeper sensitivity. Feelings are no longer suppressed or inflated into stories; they are simply felt, and then they pass. Life is no longer postponed for some imagined better moment. Fulfillment is discovered in the immediacy of now.
And with this comes a humility, a gentleness. The compulsion to judge or evaluate—oneself, others, or life—relaxes. In its place is a willingness to be, without needing to measure or compare. This is not a perfection, but a lightness of being that infuses the ordinary with simplicity and openness.
A Final Word
The light of being is not reserved for the few. It is not granted by an authority, nor withheld by your past. It is available in this breath, in this seeing, in this listening. It shines before the mind describes it and remains after every description falls away.
If you are drawn to this, let your longing be quiet and sincere. Let it be an opening rather than a grasping. Keep asking, gently and directly: What remains when all this passes? In time—or in an instant—you may find that nothing was missing, and that the light you sought was never elsewhere.
It was always here, unveiling itself as your very being.
Thanks for reading.
Beautiful!
Beautiful, thank you.