Suzanne Segal Part 5 (Nonduality)

[Guest guest]

This continues the summary of "Collision with the Infinite," by Suzanne

Segal.

 

The full summary may be viewed at

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

 

I dedicate this installment to Alan, who ran the Contemplateast-west

mailing list, and has closed it without announcement in order to place

his attentional energies elsewhere. Perhaps those who were members of

his list would like to join one of the lists I mention on the home page

of my website at

<http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/umbada>

(scroll down to find the section entitled Nonduality Mailing Lists)

 

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Part 5

 

The remainder of Collision with the Infinite is straight nondual

confession, so rather than summarize, I'll quote selections.

 

"This life is now lived in a constant, ever-present awareness of the

infinite vastness that I am."

 

"The presence of any thoughts, feelings, or actions is never interpreted

to mean anything other than that they are present."

 

"... no judgment about good or bad or right or wrong ever arises;

everything is simply what it is."

 

"Once the mind admitted to the parameters of its own sphere and stopped

pathologizing what lay outside it, the non-personal, indescribably

joyful flavor of the vastness experiencing itself moved radically to the

foreground forever."

 

"...life as usual continues to unfold; everything gets done, just as it

did before the realization of the vastness occurred. Since there has

never been a personal doer in any case, the realization of this truth

does nothing to change how functioning occurs."

 

"To live in the vastness of the naturally occurring state is to bathe in

the ocean of non-personal pleasure and joy. This joy and pleasure, which

belong to no one, are unlike any joy or pleasure that appear to refer or

belong to a someone. The emptiness is so full, so total, so infinitely

blissful to itself."

 

"In no way...am I suggesting that practices should not be done, only

that there is no practitioner who is the doer behind them. This is true

of every activity. ... Just because there is no practitioner (and never

has been)) does not mean that practice will not take place. If it is

obvious for a particular spiritual practice to occur, then it will."

 

"In fact, there is no individual 'I' who can figure out how to find the

infinite again. More importantly, where would the infinite go? I mean,

we aren't talking about something that could hide under the rug. If you

could see things as only and exactly what they are, you would see that

the 'you' that is seeing is the vastness itself."

 

"The 'character work' prescribed by psychotherapy, as well as by some

spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, leads to a similar trap

created by not seeing things to be simply what they are. A relaxation of

being naturally arises if one is not seduced into taking ideas to be

truth. This relaxation is antithetical to 'character work', with its

clear position about how we would be if our characters were worked on.

When we knock on the door of 'character work', we are invited into the

labyrinth of futurity. It is inherently impossible to arrive at a goal

that is predicated on an 'I' that will get us there. Character work is

based on the same erroneous belief that there is an individual doer who

runs the show of life and can train itself to be a better 'I'.

 

"...I can no longer call what I do psychotherapy, since it in no way

adheres to any standard principles of psychological theory or

intervention. My goal for everyone is freedom -- total freedom. I don't

want them to change how they feel, work through childhood trauma, or get

symptoms to stop. I want them to be free by seeing that things are just

what they are."

 

"Who distinguishes between the true and the false (self)? And true and

false for whom? Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and energetic

frequencies do not mean anything about some imaginary someone; they

simply are what they are."

 

"We are the vastness, and we contain everything -- thoughts, emotions,

sensations, preferences, fears, ideas, even identifications. Nothing has

to go anywhere. In any case, where would it go?"

 

"The purpose of human life has been revealed. The vastness created these

human circuitries in order to have an experience of itself out of itself

that it couldn't have without them. "

 

"The substance of the vastness is so directly perceivable to itself in

every moment that the circuitry at times requires another adjustment

phase to get used to more infinite awareness. When asked who I am, the

only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the

substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and

everything -- just as you are."