Hello Jed and everyone on the forum,
Jed, don't you want to do a comic about your experiences? hehehe...
I am an illustrator and comic artist, in fact I am more a graphic designer trying to move to making comics and illustrations.
And I was all my life disappointed because I didn't follow my dreams, I thought that it was going to be difficult to live doing my illustrations so I took the "safer" way that it was becoming a graphic designer.
Is not that I don't like graphic design, It's my passion too but making comics, illustrations, etc is really a dream for me. I am working on that, and I read one of your books, in fact I am actually reading it
and I really like the honesty you have on what you think about life and what you say to others about your experiences.
I really liked a lot when you said that everyone is your master or teacher, that you learn from everyone. That's is great. I think so too.
And about my spiritual life, it was a bit convoluted. I always was curious about Zen, and Buddhist meditation, Yoga, etc. I read a lot of books as a teen.
I was having a small graphic design studio in my native country, that is Uruguay. But things were not working well, there was a big recession so I took a chance and
I moved to New Jersey and I am working in New York. I came with my wife and now we have a 9 year old daughter.
So, I was very disappointed about my country because I always thought that people there think like an small village, they don't think big. But, in fact now I realize that it was me that wasn't thinking big.
And I was here thinking only about working, and I was in my delusional thinking about getting a high paying job, etc etc... hehehehe.... and things didn't go the way I expected, it was not bad, but not as good as I expected.
And I got very depressed and I ended in the hospital in a psychotic episode. The stress at work, everything took me to that point, I like a lot the teaching of Jesus, so I went to a Church and I fried my brain hehehe...
At that point I did a full circle and I came back to the Buddhist teachings, I am meditating again and I feel much better. And really I learned two things that I needed to learn when I was at the Christian Church,
even when the cost was to go to a psychiatric hospital.
One, is that we have not free will. I didn't understand that part from the Bible, but now I think everything makes more sense. And it is not only from the Bible, I have investigated what science says about it and I found
that there were some scientific experiments that could arrive to the conclusion that there's not free will.
The second one was to make me so humble about the power of God, Nature, Universe, etc... whatever people want to call him. That this disposition opened my mind to a epiphany.
I was going to work on the subway and suddenly, I began to feel like filled with love. I loved everyone in the train, I can't explain with words what I feel.
The only thing I can say is that I thought "Oh, that's the way that God want us to love". It was something so deep and pure that I never experienced in my life.
Then I got off the train and I took another one, I take three trains to go to work hehehe... and when I was in the other train I begin to see like lights coming out from everybody.
It was like lights but the were like connecting dots between everyone, like if everyone where connected and I felt that everything I did was affecting everyone because we were all one.
I didn't think that at that moment, but now I understand that was what happened.
Then I saw my hand, and everything looked more real. My hand and arm had like these lights, like if my blood were done of light running through my arm, it was pretty crazy.
The thing I remember thinking was "that's what Jesus said that we will have rivers of living water running through us". Because that's how it looked like. Like if there was water, and
that water was so clear that it shined through my skin. And I also remember thinking "this is real life, I was dead and now I am alive". Everything looked to me more real than real life.
I saw the horizon, I was getting off the train and it was on a platform on a 2nd or 3rd floor. That's were I got off to go to work. I could see the buildings, everything from a high place.
And I looked everything and it seemed like the earth was breathing, like if it was a living thing. I saw the sky and there was like a swirl in the clouds. And I felt like that was God, or the Universe, or the Absolute, or the laws of nature, whatever people like to "label" him.
And I really felt overwhelmed, like if I was going to fall over my knees and say, Ok... I give up. You win. Hehehehe... it was pretty crazy but beautiful.
And I had some more experiences after that, one more I remember it was that when I wake up I didn't have identity. I didn't know who I was for a moment, before waking up. But I will tell about that in a future post.
Thanks again for opening this forum!
Daniel