The Day I Looked Up

I was fifteen years old, riding my bike home from school on an ordinary spring afternoon in 1982.

If you had seen me from a distance, you would have noticed nothing remarkable; just a blond kid with a backpack riding his 10-speed along familiar streets beneath a clear blue sky. I was thinking about nothing in particular. It was an ordinary day.

Then I looked up.

What happened next lasted only a moment, yet it has stayed with me as the defining moment of my life.

As I looked into the sky, something opened. Suddenly, the world no longer felt separate from me. I felt immersed in something infinite — a joy beyond emotion, a sense of connection so profound that it seemed to dissolve the boundary between me, the sky, and everything around me. It was deeper than happiness. It was peaceful, radiant, and complete.

At fifteen, I had no words for this. Today, I might call it communion with God. Or a lifting of maya, the veil that keeps the Infinite hidden from us. In that moment, I only knew that something had happened that felt more real than ordinary reality.

I smiled as I kept on riding home, unaware that a new journey had just begun.

Over the years, I have returned to this experience again and again, wondering what it was, and whether understanding it even matters.

I do know that, for a brief moment, I experienced the world not as a collection of separate things, but as one living presence. Something awakened inside me, as though a door opened and a new way of seeing became possible.

And my life’s journey since that day has been about keeping that door open, and returning to it whenever I feel disconnected.