You will know if you have because nothing compares (or should I say, "nothingness" compares). I have journeyed many a time with many a guide and experienced many a total dissolution into all that is at the hands of that guide but this particular time, I went behind "my" awareness. Imagine if you will that you are a camera (IT) recording a camera (human body) which is recording things (which ridiculously enough happens to be the first camera). Of course, the first camera can see everything - every blade of grass, every speck of sand, every atom in existence. You, the body, are like a single pixel on that camera.

I focused heavily on the passage of time - how every step I took synchronised exactly with every increment the earth rotates on its own axis, every blade of grass dancing in the wind. BIG "MISTAKE" - I was hit with what can only be described as a "big bang" of synchronicity. Core being took over, so I (body) now got a tiny glimpse of what I truly see. Bodily awareness expanded so I now felt what was going on outside of my body, the radius limited to a couple of metres. A friend high-fived me, and I experienced it from both sides simultaneously (along with his footsteps and the ground and the grass and the air). Freaky, eh?

You know how time flies when you're having fun and slows right down when you're waiting for an important package? None of that. The focus on synchronicity pushed me into utterly objective time, I experienced things exactly one second per second, no faster, no slower. Pure block universe determinism with absolute free will. The experience was so terrifying I thought I would vaporise, I couldn't handle such a thing. The source of the fear? That camera - its magnitude (infinite), its power (see prev), its dominion (see prev). Imagine a big stranger weilding a knife in a dark alley in the middle of nowhere, now replace that stranger with the whole friggin universe. He kills you.

Yet at the same time, it was beyond comforting - when you die of course, you realise the stranger was you anyway. You know that one existential question we all have in our minds? It doesn't translate into words although you can try, and then perhaps construct a set of beliefs around the answer then perhaps over some 1000 years, some 2 billion people will brainlessly agree. Well, whatever it is, this experience answered it. The answer is also ineffable but the closest description would be "I am always here, I ain't going nowhere!".

Enough of that. I want to ask, does anyone know/has anyone experienced "the secret"? Everyone knows it, otherwise nothing would work. It can't be put into language (well hey, it is THE secret after all). There is a level of reality behind one's mind yet in that place, "mind" still exists - it's the only thing there. And this is where "the secret" is kept, locked safely away for eternity.

It broke my mind.

i am aware of the feeling of watching my mind work as a single entity, and then there is another entity doing the watching and analytical things.

this is just what Buddhism is all about. Who is aware? Are you aware of yourself being aware? Well, you had a glimpse at something beautiful. My next goal is to achieve this kind of transcendence without the use of hallucinogens. This will likely require a lifetime of devotion and purpose, but oh so worth it.

and yes, you can glimpse at the fabric machinery, yet, you can't comprehend or put it into words to take with you when you go. All you know is, that when you're looking at it, you begin to understand EVERYTHING. Everything you think about revels into their fundamental pieces and you can observe their interactions with each other. Yet, you can't possibly try to explain these thoughts to somebody, because as soon as you leave "the room" it looses all meaning again.