The Roaring Twenties, Part 1

 I could go into much more detail about drugs but I don't really want to encourage people in that direction. It seems that ordinary consciousness is plenty to move forward with. What stunts our development is getting stuck in a mindset that defines things with specific limits.

Out of the blue one day when I was 22, I had a unique experience where everything changed in a subtle way. Everything became bathed in a gently golden light, barely visible. But somehow it felt like perfection, that this was a taste of it and then after about a half hour, everything returned to normal. Maybe you had something like it? Not that ordinary consciousness isn't perfect. It is, it's just filtered by so many things that we've created or accepted as normal. 

So that experience was a preview of "something", just exactly what I didn't know. I was young and hungry for life experiences. Ordinary life experiences. I wasn't a "seeker" at all. I had been working in a factory and they went out on strike. I decided it was time for a change and I quit that job. I had some money saved and no responsibilities so I had some young person's good times. Made some friends, went to parties, had a couple of girlfriends (not at the same time). Life was good then I met "the one" and we moved in together. Eventually I got a job, then a better job, and settled into a domestic life.

Life was about work and my new young wife and food and tv and lots of music. We filled any vacuum in our life with tv as many people did in 1969. The Hare Krishnas sent me a magazine, why I have no idea but it had lots of photos of Krishna life. I wasn't attracted to them but there was "something" about them, that same something I had for that half hour the year before.  I was listening to some music and reading about these chanters and I slipped into a trance. Not something I was familiar with but it was as if time stopped and I didn't know who I was and didn't care either. It was great. Whatever it was.