How to visit heaven..without actually dying

If you saw a way to escape from the petty shit of life, would you take it?

One that didn’t involve imaginary beings, nooses, pills, or illegal substances?

Sitting in a pile of such petty shit last week, I suddenly saw an open door (and it wasn’t the door to our flat).  I don’t know why, or why then, but I looked around at the used mugs on the table, the mass of electronic wiring by the window, the crumbs on the carpet and my thongs on the floor and something said, open up and let it in.

So I did, and in came a tide of awareness.  Whether it came from outside or – more likely – from somewhere in my own head, I felt the light of pure happiness wash into me.  I understood that I was a small creature swimming in an ocean of joy and beauty, and the only barrier was the one I put up myself.  So I burst my little airtight bubble and I let it all flow in, for a few minutes – and then life resumed.

How embarrassed I would be if someone said something like that to me!  ‘Sea of joy!’ I would mutter silently. ‘Tell that to one of those Pakistani sweatshop workers.  Tell it to someone with half a brain! Or join a sect, why don’t you!’

And yet.  Some people will say, there you go, God has touched you – at last!  It was no more God than is the grass or the air.  It just was.