This next experience is one that shook the very foundation of my existence to its core. It's the event that turned me from a non-believer into a believer. To provide some context, the event I will write about happened during my college years, during my sophomore year, so around two-three years after experience one. At this point in my life, I considered myself a skeptic of religion or any sort of God. I remember having this idea of being able to control every aspect of my life and could not fathom trusting God or the universe to help me.
Looking back, I had also lost that sense of individuality I had written about in Letter 2, and felt like I was living behind a mask for most of my college years — that is, until my senior year. Especially in the competitive school I attended, where everyone competed for the same jobs, I just went with the flow without knowing any better.
The best comparison I can use is how college is essentially a living organism – a machine which inside are the micro-organisms – the students. If you are unaware, you can slowly become a part of the machine. It also didn't help that for most of my college years, I was under the influence of drugs such as alcohol and weed. Looking back, I used drugs to mask many of the insecurities and trauma that had followed me through college.
One evening, I found myself smoking with many other friends. Little did I know that this smoke session which would change my life forever. I remember smoking a joint and immediately feeling nauseous. I went back to my room to get myself back together, thinking I was just very high. However, what soon transpired afterward was unlike anything I had experienced with weed. I remember sitting on my bed and losing all sense of time and feeling. Everything around me was soon becoming distorted with bright lights. I fell to the ground, rushed to get water from my refrigerator, and drank around three bottles in what felt like seconds. I remembered not being able to taste the water and breathing heavily. At that point, I remember lying on the floor and closing my eyes in hopes that the water would mitigate this experience I was feeling. However, when I shut my eyes, I saw space with stars everywhere. It felt like I was one with space as I traveled through it. The best way to describe this would be to think of your consciousness being removed from your body and traveling through the universe.
My brain began to process that I was experiencing death and started to freak out. I tried my best not to die, pleading instantly, thinking about my family and the damage it would do to them. But another voice told me to let go and not fight it. I knew there was no point in fighting this, so I let go and felt a strange feeling of peace. Soon afterward, the darkness changed to light, and a giant cross appeared before me. The cross was speaking to me, and I remember feeling myself kneeling in front of it, asking for forgiveness. The cross warned me that I was going down the wrong path – and I promised I wouldn't let this happen again if I could get another chance.
I can't recall much after, but I remember opening my eyes, completely exhausted and still on the ground. It took me a while to realize that what I had just experienced could have been a near-death experience. However, I needed to ask the others if they had experienced anything usual from the weed to confirm this. As expected, nobody experienced anything unusual; I was the only one to go through this. Of course, I didn't tell them anything other than I was just too high to function.
Looking back, I've had many years to reflect upon this experience. I believe there are many lessons, ideas, and concepts to speak about; the two important ones are God and Death. My relationship and understanding of God changed that day. For starters, almost immediately following this event, my life changed again, and I began to slowly rediscover myself and move closer to meditation and other spiritual practices. This experience brought me closer to God after being so far removed from God for the past six years. Before this event, as I mentioned, I was an atheist who insisted on using science to prove everything in the laws of the universe. But how do you explain an experience beyond our five senses and perceived reality? The image of a colossal cross emitting a feeling of love and peace while speaking to me telepathically is something that I cannot forget. That said, I don't consider myself religious, as I believe there's a vast difference between religion and having a relationship with God.
In terms of death, I like to say I have an interesting relationship with it following the event. Deep down, I think it's natural for humans to fear death. The idea of not knowing what's out there after death leads to existential crises and a life of fear. It's what's causing modern scientists to figure out a way to "beat" death and make humans immortal. Yet, after this experience, I no longer fear Death but have come to respect and make peace with it. I've been fascinated with death and trying to understand something so beautiful and haunting simultaneously. It led me to create my film, The Keys (2023), which explores the concept of death and finds a way to personify it. Through these experiences, I don't believe that we ever indeed die in the sense portrayed in society. I think our mind – consciousness - is the source of life. I have this odd feeling that when we die, our mind returns to the source, what we will call God or the Universe.
That said, sometimes, I think about what if I did die that day? What if there's another timeline in which I caused great harm to my friends and loved ones after my death? I don't think it's unreasonable to think about that possibility if one subscribes to the multiverse theory. Whichever theory may prove true, I have come to terms with death.
