During the height of the COVID pandemic, a 20-day quarantine was announced. People were given a few days to prepare for this period, gathering necessities while avoiding any movement during the lockdown. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I had already shifted to a different lifestyle. Months of following a strict diet—completely free of sugar, carbs, and with minimal fat—combined with regular home yoga had helped me shed 7 kilos. I spent hours each day in meditation, had deleted all social media and communication apps from my phone, and limited my interactions to phone calls with only close family and friends. The quarantine announcement lit a spark in my mind: This is the silence retreat I’ve been waiting for.

I decided to create a 20-day silent retreat for myself and meticulously planned its details: no technology, no TV, no phone, not even books or paper to read or write on. I set my sights on retreating to a cabin deep in nature, gathering all the supplies I would need for 20 days so I wouldn’t have to leave. My intention was to confront my mind directly, free from distractions. This meant at least 14 uninterrupted hours each day of facing my thoughts—no reading, no listening, just confronting the vastness of my own mental space.

The first few days felt like torture. My mind was relentlessly bombarded with thoughts, memories from the past, and a rush of unprocessed emotions. The physical pain of sitting for long hours only added to the challenge. Several days passed this way. I would wake up early, before dawn, and after a cold shower, I’d prepare myself for meditation during sunrise, followed by yoga in the fresh morning air. The cabin didn’t even have hot water, and being mid-autumn, the chill was biting. But the combination of cold water, crisp forest air, and the rising sun created a magical start to each day.

Gradually, I became accustomed to the cold, and yoga and meditation became part of my daily ritual—often done in the early morning with only shorts on, amidst the chill. My morning fasting, accompanied by herbal tea I made from wild plants in the area, added to the experience. I had stopped drinking coffee a few days before the retreat, so I wouldn’t have to deal with any caffeine withdrawal headaches during my time of silence.

By noon, I’d prepare a light, simple meal of fresh vegetables, devoid of carbs or meat—just cooked vegetables, soups, salads, and the occasional fruit snack. This diet wasn’t difficult for me at all. I had been following it for months and enjoyed the simplicity. My body fat had significantly decreased, and with the weight loss, my appetite had diminished, leaving me feeling light and energized throughout the day.

After a few more days, everything became easier. My past thoughts and emotions no longer overwhelmed me. Instead, creative ideas for Superhuman, the book I had been working on, started flooding my mind. I had no way of capturing these ideas, so they simply passed by like everything else. Eventually, even these thoughts stopped coming. My connection to nature had completely transformed. When I say transformed, I mean in a profound way. I could spend hours watching the bees around me without getting bored. During yoga on the dew-covered grass, tears streamed down my face—tears of joy from the mystical union between my bare skin and the earth beneath me. It felt as if I was merging with the ground.
One evening, near sunset, I was walking in meditation, heading to a higher point to watch the sun go down, when I felt something indescribable happening. There was a strange feeling, a sensation I can’t put into words. It was as if I was on the verge of waking up from a dream. This feeling frightened me. I stood beneath a large tree, gazing at the sunset, as the sensation intensified. I felt as if something was surrounding me, though I couldn’t say if it was heaviness or lightness—I just felt scared. It felt like I was dreaming, on the brink of waking up, but I wasn’t asleep. What was I supposed to wake up from? My head began to spin, so I sat down and tried to breathe deeply, calming my heartbeat. I felt incredibly tired. Without realizing it, I lay down on the ground and closed my eyes. Colorful geometric shapes began to dance behind my eyelids. The patterns intertwined, creating new forms. My heart rate slowed, and the fear dissipated, replaced by a deep sense of bliss. I didn’t want this mesmerizing display to end. With my eyes closed, I was witnessing the most beautiful sight of my life. Slowly, the geometric patterns faded, and I felt as though I was floating. My body disappeared. I couldn’t hear anything or feel anything physical. I was weightless—not just weightless, but immersed in a boundless space of pure awareness.

Then, the feeling of floating began to move. It felt as though I was flying across the ground, and I suddenly realized I was expanding. The Earth, the galaxies—everything I had ever seen—was within me, or perhaps I was within this space. It was an empty space, yet it contained everything. There was no physical form, no location, no time—only infinite, boundless darkness.

I have no idea how long this experience lasted because time didn’t exist, but at some point, everything started to reverse. My childhood memories flashed before my eyes. Everyone I had ever known smiled at me. Angelic and demonic faces appeared and then faded into the dark. It felt as if my entire life had been a dream, and I was both the creator and the creation of this dream.

When I opened my eyes, I was stunned to see my hands and feet. I involuntarily laughed out loud, but soon my laughter turned into tears. I cried so hard that the tears streamed down my face. I felt as though I had an extra body, with ridiculous hands and feet attached to me. Slowly, I began to remember who I was. I was human. I was Ali. I was in a silent retreat, alone in nature.

I felt incredibly weak. Struggling to stand, I looked around. It was completely dark. I had no idea what time it was. I made my way back to the cabin and, without a second thought, collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, when I opened my eyes, the sun had already risen, and I had woken up later than usual. I still felt tired. As soon as I stepped out of the cabin, the fresh mountain air revived me. I looked around. It felt as though I had been reborn. Everything around me shimmered. The colors were more vibrant than I had ever seen before. The grass was a lush green, and the sunlight reflected off the flowers in a way that captivated me. I approached one of the trumpet-shaped red flowers, bringing my face close to it. The scent overwhelmed me. I stared at the flower, and soon the delicate patterns inside its thin petals started to move. Three-dimensional shapes emerged from within the flower, dancing before me. I was in awe. I rubbed my eyes, and the patterns vanished instantly. I thought to myself that perhaps something had changed in my brain after the experience from the night before. I made my way to my favorite spot for meditation, and when I started meditating, I realized something had shifted inside me. Normally, it would take me an hour to reach a state of deep meditation, but today it only took a few minutes. And, as I closed my eyes, I saw the same geometric patterns, enhancing the meditation and making it even more enjoyable.
Despite it being early, I felt an intense hunger. I listened to my body and reached for some fruit in the fridge. As I bit into it, I felt an overwhelming sense of joy. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. I stared at the fruit in disbelief. It was the same persimmon I had eaten every day, but how could it taste so extraordinary? I noticed intricate patterns inside the fruit again, emerging and dancing. With a blink of my eyes, the designs disappeared. By now, I was certain something profound had happened the night before.

The most remarkable thing, however, was my new relationship with pain. The injury in my shin, caused by snowboarding, had always caused me discomfort, especially during long periods of sitting in meditation. But this had changed. During my first meditation after the experience, I noticed that the pain no longer resided in my body. It was as if it had moved outside of me. I could manipulate it, shape it, and move it around in my mental space, as if it were an external object. I could even make it disappear. This experience continued throughout the rest of my 20-day silent retreat and lasted for a few days after I returned home.

The silence retreat, like all things, came to an end. When I returned home, I immediately turned on my phone and laptop, and within a few hours, I wrote over 50 pages of Superhuman and completed the book.

But what surprised me the most was music. After 20 days, I played one of my favorite meditation tracks, closed my eyes, and everything changed. I didn’t just hear the music—I saw it. The musical notes danced in colorful, geometric shapes, recreating the indescribable experience I had gone through.

Not just music, but my relationship with eating had also transformed. I ate in silence, mindfully chewing each bite, closing my eyes to savor the flavors. I could see the tastes in different forms and shapes.

Seeing people on the street evoked an entirely new feeling in me. I felt a profound love for every single person I encountered, even if I didn’t know them. Men, women, the elderly, children—I loved them all as if they were my own family. Even my voice had changed. It had grown deeper and calmer, and I spoke at a much slower pace.

Immediately after returning from the retreat, I began writing my new book, inspired by the profound experiences of these irreplaceable days, later published under the title The Secret of Unity.

My encounter with the boundless space of awareness had fundamentally changed me. What exactly happens in the brain during these experiences remains largely a mystery, but it had clearly altered my mental landscape and the functioning of my nervous system.

If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it’s that no matter how much I try to describe it, it’s like trying to explain the taste of chocolate to someone who has never tasted it.

Everyone describes what they experience based on their own mental background. What we call mysticism is merely an attempt—often a limited one—to express this encounter in words, whether through beautiful poetry, a work of art, or, in my case, the writing of this book.