My personal Zen - How I found God

This is the story about the events that changed my life for eternity. I'm going to give you the account of what happened exactly as I experienced them -- as crazy as they might seem.

My story begins in the middle of a big underground culture called the "rave scene". It is a place where thousands of people get together to 'dance'. Most of them take a designer drug known as Ecstasy. Often, it's mixed with other drugs like LSD, Ketamine or Marijuana. The high is usually experienced while being entranced by DJ's (Disc Jockey). The DJ's create an atmosphere of emotions by playing futuristic electronic music timed to pulsating laser light shows and computerized visuals effects.

Raves are very popular and they are growing rapidly. They started with small warehouses and clubs where DJ's played the latest techno beats combined with colorful lights. They have now grown to huge venues at fairgrounds and arenas. They showcase dozens of DJ's and live acts and include state of the art visual shows with thousands of lasers and computer animation displays. Raves usually last all night and well into the next morning (sometimes several days) and can attract tens of thousands of people.

I just happen to live close to the biggest rave festival in the United States. It's the annual Labor Day weekend "Zen Festival" and my first one was the Zen Fest Two. A few friends and I rented a van and we were thrilled with the anticipations of what kind of wonders the night would hold for us. We arrived around midnight, quite early for a rave, and it was barely getting started. We all decided to do some LSD, which none of us were strangers to. We were ready to have our senses blown away. Usually we would have done some ecstasy first to enhance the high but as luck would have it we weren't able to find any this night. Looking back now, I believe it was all part of the plan.

We walked from area to area checking out the spine-tingling electronic music and mind-bending light shows. Everywhere we looked we were treated to visual sensations. There were thousands of people at this rave and more were showing up as the night progressed. Soon, my roommate and I split from the girls we had came with. We ended up at the last arena. It was a big area under a tent.

This is where the most popular DJ's on the venue were. I believe "Rabbit in the Moon" was playing. They were synchronizing their music with a laser show that featured a man who was wearing a suit that had lasers beams shining out in every direction. And on every one of his fingers there were also lasers which he could point anywhere he wanted. He was dancing to the music, performing his own laser show combined with computer screens on the stage.

The artists were really controlling the crowd. They were feeding their emotions, and the feelings that intensified the high of the designer drugs they were on. It truly is an incredible amount of technology that's being used to make these young people's experience even higher.

As I watched this show, I was mesmerized by the beauty of everything I was seeing, hearing, and feeling. Meanwhile, the place was filling up at an unbelievable rate. People were coming from all over Florida, and further, just to be a part of the festival. The show would build in intensity as the music grew in strength and the people responded by making circles in which they danced with intense fervor. Then suddenly, they would change the mood with deep emotional music and a change in the lighting. Everyone started hugging and touching one another as the ecstasy moved through their bodies. They were being led where the DJ's and the drugs were taking them.

By now my feet had been glued to the same spot for at least an hour as the crowds filled in around me. I was totally dehydrated and there was no water in sight. Yet somehow I still could not tear myself away from what I was watching. I could hardly believe it was real. I couldn't move. I was unable to tear myself away to get the water which I desperately needed.

The more the show progressed, the more the world I knew was melting away. I could now see the reality of what was taking place there. Innocent kids were being tricked into trading their souls for a technology-induced feeling instead of searching for what they truly needed. Those colorful little pills of Ecstasy, they look so innocent. And what's the harm? They're just going to listen to music, dance through the night, maybe hug one another. But at what price?

As I watched, huge masses of people crowding in, trying to get close enough to the show so they could be force-fed their feelings. On the stage, I started seeing tall, slender, dark "beings" appear. They covered most of the stage, some of them right up against each other. I asked myself, "Okay, what's going on here? This has to be caused by the drugs. Am I the only one seeing these things?"

I tried to stay calm and focus on these beings. I somehow knew that they were evil to the core, yet they were stunningly beautiful at the same time. They were smooth and featureless. Their bodies were black as night yet they sparkled and shinned at the same time as they moved at an eerily slow pace around the stage.

It was taking all I had stay calm but what I started seeing next was all I could take. Look at the places where those kids were dancing around in those circles, I watched as the ground started to open up under them in a spiraling hole. It was creating a black hole of sorts. The hole was opening up in the floor and pulling them down, twisting them through a circular path. They just kept dancing, right until they were out of my sight. They didn't even realize what was happening to them!

I had taken hallucinogenic drugs on numerous occasions before -- I knew the effects very well -- however, this was as real as anything I'd experienced in my lifetime and it was all I could handle. I finally tore myself away and headed towards the exit, hoping to find some water. My surroundings became bleak. The grounds looked like a nuclear battle field. All the people looked dried up. Their skin was shriveled and sunken in. They looked like zombies and there wasn't any water to be had, anywhere. The festival had run out.

As I pushed through the thousands of people in search of water, the sights intensified. I went from seeing my surroundings in a new way to not seeing my surroundings at all. I saw whatever my mind was showing me -- like in a dream -- but I wasn't sleeping. I had no control over my thoughts! I saw random events from my life, both real and fabricated. They all seemed real to me, like when you are dreaming and your mind can't tell that what it's perceiving is not really happening. I have no idea how long this went on, time was irrelevant. It could of been a minute, it could of been years. I was completely aware of what I was experiencing, yet had no control over it. I could not force a single thought that I wanted. I was aware that I was trying to think of my name, where I worked, my friends names, anything! I was not able to form a single conscious thought.

I didn't realize this until some time later, but I believe now that what I was experiencing was my own personal hell. It was just me and my conscious -- separated from God, with no control over my thoughts... outside of time. I was not a religious or spiritual person by any means, it was this event, the revealing of the Holy Spirit to me that started turning my mind toward the world beyond this earthly one.

While I was in this state, I made my way outside of the gates somehow. I was now in the parking lot and acting crazy. Crazy enough to cause the police to arrest me (probably a good thing for my own sake). It was many hours later, after the drugs had worn off, and I found myself being booked into the Orange county police station. My mother posted bail for me. My friends came back and picked me up and I made it home alive -- but I will never be the same.

Today I know that what happened was my first spiritual experience I know the almighty God above was reaching out to me, opening my eyes to a whole new world, the real one. It took me a while to realize this. At first I assumed I had just taken too many drugs and had lost my mind. That would seem to be the logical answer and that's what everyone else thought. But after that experience my mind was not the same. I was open to a new school of thought. All kinds of information started to cross my path, too much to be a coincidence. Books I would just happen across, or a show on television I would see. This was all causing me to realize that there are a lot of people out there who know the truth and it has always been right here under our noses. The people I started meeting and talking to were helping to rapidly increase my knowledge.

Zen fest '97 - step two

It has been a year since my first experience at the annual Zen Fest and my mind has now turned towards God and the great things that come with a true knowledge of Him. I knew the rave culture that I loved so much was producing something dark and sinister, yet I still set my sights to the next festival as soon as it was announced. In the meantime, most of my friends knew about my first Zen experience, but I had not told a single person what I had actually saw, thought or felt that night. This time it was only my good friend and myself going. It was her first Zen Fest.

This Zen Fest was in a new location in central Florida and was much bigger than the last one. The 60 watt laser, shooting through the sky was visible from many miles away. As we approached the grounds it felt as though we were landing on a different planet. Even though I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to take Ecstasy, I purchased some anyway just for this festival. I put the powder in a capsule along with a tablet of LSD. We arrived there fairly early and decided to hang out for a while at the main stage in the outdoor arena.

We watched the first band for a short time and then decided to take our capsules -- we couldn't wait any longer. As the drugs kicked in, we forgot all about our surroundings, getting lost in ourselves We hugged each other, feeling the effects of the ecstasy. But the euphoria was short-lived and before long we came back to reality. Now, an band called "K-5" -- a crowd favorite -- was just starting on the main stage. We watched the show, and although it was entertaining and visually stimulating, I felt a certain uneasiness. When they were finished with their show, my friend and I went out to the car. Once there, we relaxed as we enjoyed some cold drinks and ate some of the fruit we had brought with us.

Before long we headed back inside. By now the energy was really kicking and there were probably around 20,000 kids pushing their way around the grounds. We decided to fight our way into the indoor arena and, after some time, we managed to get in. We entered into the on-going show of "Rabbit in the Moon". I think it was the same act that I was watching a year before when my vision had started. Instantly, I saw the "reality" lurking behind the show. These kids were unknowingly pushing their way closer to their stimulation, closer to their gods, closer to their demise. The stimuli' of the show was guiding their feelings, taking them away from this world and closer to their eternal death.

Even though I was seeing this eminent and ominous evil -- I could not pull myself away. Instead, I grabbed my friend's hand and started heading towards the front of the show. As strange as it sounds, I wanted to leave, but instead was heading right into the center of It.

As I pushed closer towards the front, I also kept trying harder to turn away! It felt as if it was the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life. But with all of my might -- in a single bursting moment -- I broke free. I turned around, and tightly holding my friends hand, we headed towards the door.

As soon as I did this, a feeling of such pure bliss washed over me. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was more than a feeling, it consumed me inside and out. It felt so clean and pure, a feeling that no drug could equal.

We made it outside and I was compelled, for the first time in my life, to mention God. As I nervously, stumbled over my words, I knew that I had to confess what I was feeling. So I told my friend, I know I had just been touched by God. There was no mistaking it. This was as real as it gets.

That was my first experience of the possibilities that are within our grasps. I knew that I would not be participating in this festival any longer, so we found a nice hill to sit on, away from the music. We just sat for a while. The wonderful feeling of peace stayed with me for some time as all sorts of good thoughts entered my mind. I came to some revelations and many pieces of the puzzle of life clicked together that night.

Eventually, we made it back to the car and headed for home. This time I did tell some of my close friends about my experience. They listened, but of course they mostly said, "Yeah, but you were on drugs". However, the seed was planted in their heads.

Looking back now, I believe the first Zen Fest was to show me the truth about the evil that was consuming all it can in this world, and also to show me a glimpse of the eternal torment that was lying ahead of me, and others who did not accept the Truth. At the second Zen, I received a taste of the divine salvation that is here for the taking, if we follow the right path.