So this experience happened 5 days ago, yet I'm still blown away by the simplicity and power of it. I've been debating whether I should write a full post on it, but I figured that my account could help others on this forum. And are we not on this journey together? I didn't want to wait too long, or I might lose some of the finer details. This story is just as much for me as it is for you. I really hope you'll be able to understand (or at least intuit) the gravity of what's being said here. If you haven't had an enlightenment experience yet, please forget everything you think you know about it. This is it; it probably doesn't get more simple or direct than what I'm about to share here. First off, I'd like you to watch this wonderful video from Rupert Spira. I watched it a few hours before my enlightenment experience, and little did I know, it proved to be crucial for me to have that awakening. In the video, Rupert uses the analogy that we are characters in a movie-- a movie I'd like to title The Search for Enlightenment. Even though we're not aware of it, we play characters in this adventure movie of life, and we're always told by other characters that the thing we're searching for is just over that hill, or just in the next town over. We're constantly seeking for this thing, thinking it's a destination or an event, and that once we experience it, then everything else will be fine. Well, Rupert eloquently explains that the characters in the movie have been duped! That's you! That was me! Enlightenment is not an achievement. It is not a place. It is not an event. So then... what do we as the characters in the movie do? Is there any hope? Well, yes! But that requires you to make a paradigm shift to understand what enlightenment really is. Drop all of your assumptions, fears, and doubts. Your job--as the character in the movie--is to play and enjoy your part in the movie, but to also become aware of the screen that you're being played on. Enlightenment is being aware of the screen. This is a huge meta-perspective shift! Imagine how difficult it would be to convince a character in a movie (assuming they're real people and not actors), that they're not real! That to truly enjoy their life and role in society, that they have to become aware of the screen. Of course they'd say, "What screen?! This is all real, can't you see??" Then they'd laugh you away, and if you were insistent, they'd call you a lunatic! We're talking about The Truman Show levels of recontextualization. After watching the video, I thought, "Huh, maybe it really is that simple. In fact, it makes perfect sense that it would be that simple. Of course enlightenment can't be found in the movie! Duh!" I've been researching enlightenment and watching Leo's videos for a few months now, so conceptually this made sense, and it seemed to fit in with what I already knew. So I thought about it a couple times throughout the day, but nothing came of it. It didn't really click since I was trying to conceptualize this whole movie scenario in my head. However, watching that video planted the seed for my awakening experience during my meditation session later that night. It's late at night, around 9pm. I have this ritual where I do my concentration and meditation practice right at the end of the day. I doubt that's the most effective, but regardless, it seems to always work out that way and I like it. I also like to do these in my living room in complete darkness. So after my 3 minutes of concentration with a metronome, I get up on the couch, back straight, eyes closed, to do my 15-ish minute meditation. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. However, after about 3-4 minutes (that quick??) into my meditation, I find myself in an interesting headspace... I somehow got as close to no-mind as I've ever achieved, probably 90% of my thoughts just vanished, and I found myself peacefully drifting in a sea of awareness. I could pick up on a stray thought every 3 seconds maybe, but I was completely detached, and as such I simply watched it float on by. It was quite surreal. Just that experience alone would have been awesome enough, but it was what happened next that rocked my world... As I'm drifting in the sea, the best metaphor I can use is that the sea slowly turned into a serene lake, with not even my few remaining thoughts able to make a splash or ripple. Then I had an intuition that I should open my eyes... I ALMOST NEVER open my eyes during meditation! But here's what's interesting about the rest of this experience: I didn't really "think" any of this stuff. Usually I talk to myself in my head using English, but not a word was thought. I just felt that I needed to open my eyes, so I did. Now picture the scene. I'm meditating on my couch, legs crossed, in almost complete darkness. Only some faint moonlight from an adjacent room filtering in. I didn't plan any of this out, but guess what my eyes were met with when I opened them? You guessed it, the faint outline of my 50in TV monitor a few feet in front of me! Holy. Shit. Within the span of a couple seconds, I recognized the tv, my eyes shot wide open, adrenaline rushed through me, and tons of intuitions (not thoughts) came into me about the Rupert Spira video I had just watched a few hours ago. There was no reasoning, no thinking, nothing. Just understanding. I made this cosmic recontextualization of my life as playing out on a multi-dimensional and multi-sensory screen, just like the 2d, exclusively visible one in front of me! I slowly looked around the room, and was conscious that it was all screen. I not only recognized my role in the movie, but my True self as being this constant, present awareness of all this sensory dream stuff being interfaced through the screen. My physical body even turned into a screen. And it was all one. I became one with the room. I basked in this completely alien and indescribable sensation, just looking around and realizing that everything I had ever known was nothing but screen. After about 1 minute, my first tangible thought arose. I grin so genuinely and widely that my face feels like it's stretching, and I say to myself, "This is it. It doesn't get any better than this." You might think this would be scary, but for me in that position, I was READY for truth. I had this intuition that it was staring itself in my face my whole life. But I got it; it finally clicked in a sober state, and now I get to carry that with me forever. Since then, not too much has changed. I'm overall a little happier, a little lighter, able to keep things in check. I'm still taking the steps that I already put in place for improving my life. Everything is funny to me, but that was the case for months before then. You have to understand that I've had some INTENSE awakenings on psychedelics over the past two years. I'd imagine that for a normal person with no such experience, an out-of-the-blue sober enlightenment like I just recounted would completely change their life, and it would really throw them off their rocker. But for me, it was like a final puzzle piece snapping into place. I was like, "Oh! This is it!"  Unlike many people on this forum, I'm not going to masquerade as some enlightened being. I am not enlightened, and I don't believe there's a line to be drawn in the sand to make such a claim. It is not a title. It is simply the awareness of one's own true nature. After enlightenment, it is clear that my capacity to love is still low, but I know my potential to be infinite. I am ABLE to love everything, but my capacity to show and act that out is still underdeveloped. Likewise, I am ABLE to be happy in every situation, but my capacity to be that conscious presence is still underdeveloped. It's like enlightenment was the last piece in clearing any roadblocks ahead, but the fact of the matter is that I still haven't driven that far. Enlightenment is not a teleportation device. But I'm very thankful that I earned this understanding early on in my journey, so that I'm free to charge ahead.