I felt I had no possibilities of success in this world and became addicted to Dexedrine pills in the Summer of 1971. I had to leave art school in 1970 with a nervous breakdown.
Back at home I was pushed to get a job and worked as a 'gopher,' a filing clerk, at an accounting office. I quit and resorted to the pills as Summer began. By Fall I had lost over 20 pounds of healthy weight and hair was starting to fall out a bit. I was totally addicted to the diet pills.
I was pre-occupied with sex and was at York University visiting a girl. I had spent the previous night, however, in the city with another girl. I was pretty crazy. I went back to the women's residence of the young lady I was visiting, and while walking within the huge residence building, I saw Jesus in an aureole of light from his chest up.
I had lifted my head slightly to see him. It just stared, and I began to feel His awareness of me. I could feel Spirit's peace behind me also. His presence quite intimated God for me. When you feel God, it is familiar. God is not 'strange.' It is the opposite. After some seconds, I no longer could see Jesus. A voice in my mind suggested I should look people in the eyes.
Soon I was in Venise's room, and I was crying and was quite gripped with fear of dying which seemed as if imminent. I cried. "I am no good," I kept saying. She was consoling but couldn't stop me from crying in my terror. I don't know why this fearing arose, but it surely did. Venise was moved to leave me to myself, and just as she left, I stopped crying.
I looked around me. Something had changed and I felt the place was filled with Peace. Peace is not the absence of violence. It is the presence of God's Spirit. In hindsight, my tears had softened my heart and sensitized me to the Peace. I got up. That Peace was not 'only' peace! It was as if Heaven had woken up and become normalcy. Heaven was where I was. I am not trying to sound dramatic. I try to do the opposite--understatement perhaps, but I had lived over 20 years and what I was feeling was just not normal! And I refer to Heaven simply because that's what it was, everywhere.
I began to walk, to nowhere in particular, there in the women's residence. (Males were permitted.) I met a young lady whom I spoke with. Maybe I said, "Hi." There must have been some significant eye contact. I was wide open, emotively, then. She declared that I was 'sick,' as in wacko. She meant no derogatory thing. She was being candid. I asked her," Can you feel that?" meaning the Peace. She said, " Yes."
That's all I can remember as the Real Big Daddy Peace came on! I could "see" It! I must have been seeing from within my very midst, where the Truth is, where the Self is. I perceived a scene of a Void, radiant blackish green nothingness! It was Self. It IS SELF, now, too! It is Always! Always!!! "What" I was seeing and sensing with my entire being was THAT which all the spiritual teachings mention--the Satisfaction and Fulfillment of Being. IT IS!
And I am sure enough that Jesus is responsible for my " encounter" with It. Less than an hour earlier I had been seeing and feeling Him seeing and Knowing me! I had felt my wonderfulness, maybe even my sweetness, my best part, because He was seeing this as "David." When and where there is Love, such things are telecommunicated. He is never removed from Love. It is His way. Anyway, The Center of Life was posited right in front of my conscious vision, and I knew it to be myself and All that Is. Essence. It was timeless, well above and beyond time, experiencing This.
At some point I recall walking away and I had a brief anticipation that my Nirvana, my Heaven, would diminish, that my ego would resume. But shades of It remained for weeks or months after.
My Dad and my brother had appeared that night and drove me home. They had come from Ottawa to get me. I'm sure the lady I was visiting phoned them and complained of my 'mad self.' I wept sometimes in the back seat of the car. I had just seen God! No way in hell I could have told them this! Nobody needs to envy my experience. I cannot turn it on and off like a disciplined yogi. The living Beatitude I saw and felt is Ever So, but I cannot recall it fully. If I could, I would be re-experiencing It. It Is and was The Self. There is only one Self, amid which we all "am"/Be. We deem ourselves to be physical. We are quite convinced. But that is temporary stuff: atoms and molecules.
Spirit is not divisible. We are One. We are, each and all, One.
Bless you for listening. Thank you for this opportunity to share. I did not become a saint, sadly. I talk to my departed wife. I know she is, and I know I will continue to be, forever. Love never dies. Life never ends. Amen.