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John Tan and Nafis both spoke of awakening—of a clear shift into self-realization—less than a year of sustained self-inquiry. For me, it took about 1 year and 10 months. Yet the range I’ve heard from others is even wider: a friend told me his inquiry took five years to reach self-realization, while figures like Ramana Maharshi and Eckhart Tolle are often described as having had a sudden breakthrough sparked by a single, incisive moment of inquiry. And in the Chan tradition, biographies of Master Hsu Yun describe a long arc—roughly twenty-five years between the early instruction in hua-tou inquiry and his decisive breakthrough. (See: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2025/12/the-awakening-of-chan-master-hsu-yun.html)
That spread left me with a simple question: is there any “common” timeframe for self-inquiry to bear fruit, or is it essentially unpredictable? Are there patterns—intensity, continuity, life conditions, temperament—or is the diversity itself the lesson?
So I asked ChatGPT to list as many known examples as possible—people who explicitly practiced self-inquiry (or a close cousin like hua-tou / koan inquiry), and whose biographies or teachings mention how long it took before a reported shift into realization.
It replied after taking some time to research:
Here are the clearest cases where reputable sources actually give numbers. (This genre is messy: timelines are often self-reported, simplified for teaching, or later mythologized—so treat this as anecdotal data, not a law of nature.)
| Person | Inquiry style | Reported time to decisive shift | Notes / source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hsu Yun (虛雲) | Hua-tou (“Who…?”) | ~25 years (31→56) | Instruction at ~31; famous breakthrough at Gaomin around 56. |
| Nisargadatta Maharaj | “Watch the sense I AM” | ~3 years | He explicitly says “only three years.” (Integral Yoga® Magazine) |
| Ramana Maharshi | Spontaneous “Who dies?” self-inquiry | Immediate (at 16) | The “death experience” inquiry is described as sudden; then self-attention continues unbroken. (gururamana.org) |
| Eckhart Tolle | Spontaneous inquiry (“I can’t live with myself…”) | Overnight (then deepening) | He describes an abrupt collapse of the false self; later describes months/years of integration. (eckharttolle.com) |
| Byron Katie | Self-inquiry arising at awakening (“The Work”) | Sudden (one morning, 1986) | Her site frames it as a momentary shift; preceded by ~10 years depression. (The Work of Byron Katie) |
| Dahui Zonggao (大慧宗杲) | Koan/hua-tou style Chan | ~8 months (with Yuanwu) | Scholarly source notes “studied for eight months… realized a full awakening.” (JSTOR) |
So is there a “common” time?
From even this small “only-the-ones-with-numbers” sample, you get everything from instant → months → a few years → decades. The only honest “trend” is: big variance, and the reported duration often depends on (a) what counts as “awakening,” (b) intensity/continuity of practice, and (c) how the story gets retold for teaching. (book.bfnn.org)
If you want, I can also turn this into a spreadsheet-style framework (definitions of “awakening,” “first insight” vs “decisive breakthrough,” intensity metrics) so your comparisons don’t become apples vs oranges.
