When Time Disappears in Meditation

Some experiences resist explanation and stay with us for a lifetime. The one I am about to describe took place during a meditation session more than fifty years ago. Fourteen hours passed, yet I experienced them as if they had lasted only a few seconds. I offer no theory or interpretation—only a sincere account.

A woman seated in meditation, with a great light above her head, symbolizing samadhi.

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When Time Disappears in Meditation

One evening, I sat down on my meditation cushion and began my usual sequence of the four techniques that make up my daily practice.

When it was time for the technique of inner light, I draped my meditation cloth over my head, closed my eyes, and practiced Sambhavi Mudra.

Almost immediately, the familiar shape that I see every day during this practice appeared before me. For lack of a better description, I call it a "slice of pineapple." Within moments, the black circle at its center filled in, and the pineapple slice became a simple patch of white light.

I then had the distinct impression that my body, seated in the lotus posture, was leaning forward. The patch of light seemed to be moving toward me. I leaned farther forward. Yet my body, perfectly upright, with my elbows resting on the board of a barragane¹, must have remained completely motionless. It could not have been my body that was moving.

Perhaps it was my consciousness, sinking deeper, that created this sensation of motion. It was not the light coming toward me—it was I who was moving toward the light.

Through a series of successive approaches, almost like spasms, the light came so close that nothing remained but itself. It filled all space. It was a white light of extraordinary intensity, radiant without being harsh.

I had the unmistakable feeling of traveling through it, like an object launched at tremendous speed into the sky. Yet there was no visual reference that could have produced such an impression—no trees passing by along a road, no landscape sliding beneath an airplane. Even so, I felt with absolute certainty that I was physically moving through that light.

An immeasurable joy flooded me—pure bliss.

Then, far ahead, I noticed a tiny golden point. As I continued moving forward, it grew larger. It too became a pineapple-shaped form and then a widening patch of golden light. Within that golden light, I thought I could make out a figure beginning to move, as though it had been standing with its back turned and was slowly turning toward me.

From the beginning of the experience, not a single thought had crossed my mind.

Then one appeared : "God."

At that precise instant, the golden sun shot backward and the entire experience reversed with it—as if someone had pressed rewind on an old VHS tape. I watched every sequence unfold in reverse order. The golden light became once again a pineapple-shaped form, then a single point of light.

I opened my eyes.

My room seemed to be filled, to about three-quarters of its height, with a dense opalescent mist. I turned my head toward the alarm clock beside me and then toward the large candle I had lit the previous evening.

The candle had burned down completely. Only a short piece of wick was still burning, and its flame seemed unnaturally tall. After a few moments, the opalescent mist vanished, and the flame returned to its normal size.

It was nine o'clock in the morning.

I had begun meditating at around seven o'clock the previous evening. This "journey" had therefore lasted nearly fourteen hours. The most astonishing part was that I would have sworn it had lasted only a few seconds.

Many years later, while reading the traditional descriptions found in the yoga texts, I recognized this experience as what is called nirvikalpa-samadhi, or nirbīja-samādhi—literally "seedless samadhi," a state without object and without thought. It is described in the ancient tradition as the deepest state of meditation, where thought falls completely silent, time itself seems to disappear, and consciousness dissolves into the light of the Whole.

I am not trying to convince anyone. I am simply bearing witness to what I experienced—and to something that words, however carefully chosen, can only ever approach.

1. A barragane is a traditional support used in certain meditation techniques. It consists of a short cane-like stand topped by a perpendicular wooden board on which the practitioner rests the forearms.

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