When writing about Segal, I've used the pronoun "she," but from the POV of Vastness, no such person ever existed. Segal was something like a chicken whose head has been cut off; the body continued with its usual functions, but the mind ran in circles of fear having no center to connect with or act as a reference point. The mind became literally untethered from its past mooring.
I doubt that anyone who reads her book will think that any sort of selfhood continued after her "collision with the infinite." Her writing is so clear on this subject, and her story is so compelling, that I would be surprised if anyone on this forum would doubt that the events unfolded exactly as she described.
A few other body/minds have experienced a sudden and complete disintegration of selfhood, but in every other account I've read about the mind accepted what had happened, and did not fight to regain a sense of selfhood as a point of reference. Segal's story simply illustrates that human beings are complex little suckers, and the range of possible experiences is as vast as the vastness itself.
If we contemplate the stories of Ramana, Segal, Tolle, Niz, Ramesh, and hundreds of other non-standard-model-following peeps, we can only conclude that no rules (concepts) can be applied to how the vastness may choose to wake up to itself.
This afternoon the woman called me who asked if I had ever experienced any of the negative stuff she had mentioned to me (existential angst). I told her that when I was in college, I suffered what I then considered to be a severe case of it. I was reading Camus, Sartre, et al, and began to see life the same way that they did--absurd and meaningless. This often made me feel as if I were outside the house of life looking through a window at the activity inside. I don't remember any depersonalization or disassociation, but I certainly remember a strong sense of alienation and surrealness caused by incessant thinking. Today, it is obvious to me how incessant thinking separates the apparent individual from the flow of life, psychologically, and creates the sense of being a "pitiful me in here" looking at "a happier world out there."
Apparently, whether someone has blissful experiences or unpleasant experiences on this path is determined solely by the luck of the draw. My advice to the woman who called me was to shift attention away from thoughts to..... blah blah blah. She replied, "But if I do that, won't I be running away from the unpleasantness?" I could only chuckle. I said, "Your question is a good example of how the mind conjures up confusion for itself, koan after koan. You have several choices. First, you can trust me and do what I'm suggesting; second, you can sit and contemplate this new koan that your mind has just generated; third, you can investigate who is having unpleasant feelings; or fourth, you can continue thinking about, reinforcing, and resisting the feeling that life is unpleasant. Life is what it is. Resisting the obvious can be exhausting. Accepting the obvious leads to easier isness."
I doubt that anyone who reads her book will think that any sort of selfhood continued after her "collision with the infinite." Her writing is so clear on this subject, and her story is so compelling, that I would be surprised if anyone on this forum would doubt that the events unfolded exactly as she described.
A few other body/minds have experienced a sudden and complete disintegration of selfhood, but in every other account I've read about the mind accepted what had happened, and did not fight to regain a sense of selfhood as a point of reference. Segal's story simply illustrates that human beings are complex little suckers, and the range of possible experiences is as vast as the vastness itself.
If we contemplate the stories of Ramana, Segal, Tolle, Niz, Ramesh, and hundreds of other non-standard-model-following peeps, we can only conclude that no rules (concepts) can be applied to how the vastness may choose to wake up to itself.
This afternoon the woman called me who asked if I had ever experienced any of the negative stuff she had mentioned to me (existential angst). I told her that when I was in college, I suffered what I then considered to be a severe case of it. I was reading Camus, Sartre, et al, and began to see life the same way that they did--absurd and meaningless. This often made me feel as if I were outside the house of life looking through a window at the activity inside. I don't remember any depersonalization or disassociation, but I certainly remember a strong sense of alienation and surrealness caused by incessant thinking. Today, it is obvious to me how incessant thinking separates the apparent individual from the flow of life, psychologically, and creates the sense of being a "pitiful me in here" looking at "a happier world out there."
Apparently, whether someone has blissful experiences or unpleasant experiences on this path is determined solely by the luck of the draw. My advice to the woman who called me was to shift attention away from thoughts to..... blah blah blah. She replied, "But if I do that, won't I be running away from the unpleasantness?" I could only chuckle. I said, "Your question is a good example of how the mind conjures up confusion for itself, koan after koan. You have several choices. First, you can trust me and do what I'm suggesting; second, you can sit and contemplate this new koan that your mind has just generated; third, you can investigate who is having unpleasant feelings; or fourth, you can continue thinking about, reinforcing, and resisting the feeling that life is unpleasant. Life is what it is. Resisting the obvious can be exhausting. Accepting the obvious leads to easier isness."
