Suzanne Segal Part 3 (Nonduality)

[Guest guest]

I continue the summary of Suzanne Segal's Collision with the Infinite.

Many commented last time on the issues of Segal's brain tumor and her

experience of fear. Please see if the following finds you revising your

thinking in even the slightest manner.

 

I have provided for you, at the Suzanne Segal web page, links to all the

names mentioned in this posting:

 

http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/umbada/suzanne.htm

 

Parts 1 and 2 are available there. There are still 3 or 4 more

installments coming before this book has been summarized. However, I may

not be posting the remaining installments at all these places, so be

sure to sign-up for the Nonduality Salon mailing list to catch the rest

of this and also upcoming discussions on nonduality and Carlos Castaneda

and Nonduality and Bernadette Roberts, among all kinds of other things.

//nondualitysalon

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Part 3

 

Learning further about the fear, Segal came upon Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's

assertion that the experience of cosmic consciousness was often a

horrible experience, throwing a person into confusion and fear, and

absolutely requiring the presence of a guru to verify the state, so that

the experiencer could gain the proper perspective, accept it, settle

into it, and allow Grace to bring the next stage of growth.

 

Verification and perspective came from many such gurus. The first solid

verification came from Dr. Jean Klein, who told Segal, "You must stop

the part of the mind that constantly keeps trying to look back at the

experience... . Get that part out of the way, then joy will come."

 

Segal had realized that that is what she had been doing for ten years:

looking within to her affective system (feelings, thoughts, emotions,

will) and, finding nothing but emptiness, her reaction was fear. So as

long as there was introspection or self-reflection, or 'looking within',

there was a meeting with emptiness, which she had been conditioned to

believe was a 'wrong' meeting point. For when one looks within one

should find feelings, states of mind, emotions, the drive to act, not

the absence of those, not emptiness.

 

Now Klein had verified her state as one of realization of the true

nature of existence.

 

Others she came upon in books or in person, offered the same

verification. She had correspondences with many.

 

(None by email, apparently. This was 1992, still the early days of the

Internet, though there were nondual resources available on Usenet and a

fledgling World Wide Web, and knowledgeable people to talk to via email.

However, the World Wide Web didn't even begin to start to take-off until

1993.)

 

(By the way, folks, what if a Suzanne Segal entered an email forum,

describing to us all she has described, and, along with her description

she indicated she had a brain tumor. What would you say to her? How

would you guide her? Some people seem to attribute her experiences to a

tumor for which there is no proof she had at the time of her experience.

So how would you deal with the human being -- not the book review --

that came into your midst? I'm not saying I wouldn't drop the ball, but

how about you?) Anyway, read on...

 

Christopher Titmuss, a teacher of Buddhist vipassana meditation, assured

her that she was not insane, but that insanity is the absence of

experiences such as hers, whose absence leaves only the 'me' and the

tragic consequences of limitation on personal, societal and global

scales. Titmuss told Segal she need to be reassured of the spiritual

significance of her experiences, and that a calm acceptance of her

experiences would eventually quiet the thoughts and feelings giving rise

to fear. And out of that quieting will come the full and deep

understanding of the experience. She soon came to realize that her

experience was neither insane nor wrong, only ungraspable.

 

Reb Anderson, abbot of Green Gulch Zen Center in San Francisco, helped

her loosen a rigidity in the way her mind was interpreting the

experience. He helped her to see that the experience of emptiness was

bliss, but not relative bliss, rather the bliss of emptiness knowing

itself. He imparted the knowledge that this absolute bliss cannot be

known by the skandhas, thus the loosening of rigidity in her mind.

 

Jack Kornfield, a vipassana teacher, and well-known speaker and author

Ram Dass, both offered words of support for the experience, and

reassurance, reminding Segal that time was required in order to

acclimate to the change in consciousness.

 

A.H. Almaas offered further support, recognizing her experience as

similar in some ways to what he had gone through himself as part of an

ongoing process. He assured her that the experience was "definitely not

pathological," and that the fear and terror were common; also that she

had done well without the guidance of a guru, but that extraordinary

understanding is required to understand and transcend the experience and

that a guru provides that.

 

Of all she had met and read of, Ramana Maharshi she felt was most clear,

and she considered Ramana her spiritual father. Segal excerpts a portion

of his talks, and states generally that, "He described my experience in

such a direct and simple fashion that it left absolutely no room for

doubt about what I was encountering." And also Segal says

"Reading more and more of Ramana's words led me to an astounding

passage. When asked by a disciple if it was necessary to be associated

with the wise (sat-sanga) in order for the Self to be realized, Ramana

answered: 'association with the unmanifest sat or absolute existence (is

required).... The sastras say that one must serve (be associated with)

the unmanifest sat for twelve years in order to attain

Self-realization...but as very few can do that, they have to take second

best, which is association with the manifest sat, that is, the Guru.'"

What astounded her, of course, about the passage is that she was closing

in on the twelfth year of her experiencing of no-self or the unmanifest

sat.

 

Poonjaji, the well-known disciple of Ramana, validated Segal's

experience, saying, "You have become liberation (moksha) of the realized

sages."

 

Gangaji, another prominent teacher in the Ramana-Poonjaji lineage, said,

"This realization of the inherent emptiness -- which is pure

consciousness -- of all phenomena is true fulfillment. In the face of

conditioned existence, much fear can be intitally felt. Ultimately, the

fear is also revealed to be only that same empty consciounsess."

 

Segal's correspondence and eventual meeting with Andrew Cohen was

fruitful.They spent several hours together talking about the emptiness

of personal self, and Cohen imparted to Segal, in that time, the

awareness that the emptiness "was full of exquisite infinity." In the

month that followed, that awareness deepened and became her root

awareness. Andrew Cohen had expressed and conveyed a tremendous

excitement toward Segal's 'condition', for she was uncommon not only in

having the experience of no-self, but in persisting to see it through to

a stable resolution. Cohen said, "Your openness and receptivity is a

sign of true humility, which alone makes all things possible."

_______

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