Once you have had a glimpse of awareness or Presence, you know it firsthand. It is no longer just a concept in your mind.

On the deepest level, what I know for sure is that who I am, essentially, is consciousness and consciousness is timeless and it transcends the body; it transcends the psychological "me," the egoic self. Everybody can know themselves as consciousness.

Stillness is your essential nature.

My sense of identity broke down and was replaced by something that is very hard to put into words. Awareness, Consciousness.

The egoic madness, or dysfunction, becomes enormously amplified by the science and technology we all have developed.

I can sometimes sit for two hours in a room with almost no thought. Just complete stillness. Sometimes when I go for walks, there's also complete stillness; there's no mental labeling of sense perceptions. There's simply a sense of awe or wonder or openness, and that's beautiful.

And whenever you feel that essence in another, you also feel it in yourself.