Suzanne Segal (Collision With the Infinite)

[Reefs]

Chapter 9 – Living the Vastness

I feel tempted to quote the entire chapter in full, because Suzanne does such an excellent job of describing the perspective of Oneness and unity consciousness. I don’t really have much to add to what she says. So I’ll refer you to this chapter in the book if you want a read her detailed descriptions in full. Here I’ll just focus on the most relevant parts.

So, after her big realization and unity consciousness experience (we here would call it CC or kensho), she settled into her new perspective and started to meditate again. And what happened to her all made sense now, and what’s more, life suddenly was amazing:

At the bus stop in Paris, the “me” was annihilated, and it has never reappeared in any form. With this annihilation, there occurred the realization that a “me" has never existed who is the doer behind what has appeared to be “my” life. In recent years, it has also become clear that not only is there no “me,” there is also no “other.” The “no other-ness” is now so dominant that nothing else is perceived. Life is being lived out of the infinite substance of which it is made, and this substance—which is what and who we all are—is constantly aware of itself out of itself. What an extraordinary way to live!

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

She also started dividing her experience with emptiness into a wintertime and a springtime. In the wintertime of emptiness there was tremendous fear that no-self meant there was something wrong. And so there were constant attempts to at least make it look like being someone. And really, if Suzanne would be honest, she'd admit that there was indeed something wrong and that she was actually in a state of severe existential suffering.

This is something I can actually relate to some degree, and think others can as well. I would call it  initial awakening, when people start waking up from the consensus trance of being a somebody and suddenly that somebody either disappears without a trace, as happened to Suzanne, or that somebody at least is in the process of imploding, so that one is thrown into a state of uncertainly and not-knowing about one’s true identity, one’s place in the word, one’s relationship to others and the world, which essentially boils down to the question of what is ultimately real and what isn’t. It’s a strange in-between state, not asleep anymore, but not fully awake either. And so there is a clear awareness that things are not what they appear to be, but there isn’t yet the knowing what things truly are, only hints here and there. The Jed McKenna books cover this kind of twilight zone experience/perspective.

The springtime of emptiness, she says, was just awesome. Seeing with the eyes of the Infinite put an end to all the uncertainty, which was replaced with an absolute knowing:

The human circuitry is made of the same substance [as the Infinite]. When it consciously participates in the sense organ that the vastness is always using to perceive itself, the human circuitry becomes aware—not through its own sense organs, but through the sense organ of the vastness—that the substance of the infinite is its naturally occurring state. Seeing this, the circuitry joins the undulation of the vastness in a conscious way and begins to experience unceasing awe at everything that is.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that’s what ‘seeing into one’s own nature’ means.

She continues:

When it becomes clear that there is no personal reference point, it also becomes apparent that there never was a personal reference point, and that everything is done and has always been done by an unseen doer. This doer doesn’t start doing only when it is seen to be the doer. It has always been the doer; the personal self has never been the doer. Thus, 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. All the functions continue as before—thinking, feeling, acting, relating. The difference is that it is now clear that they have never referred or belonged to a someone.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that’s what ‘seeing thru the SVP’ means.

You will have noticed by now that the general tone of this chapter is in stark contrast to the other chapters before. For the first 2/3 of the book, Suzanne’s favorite word to describe her experience has always been ‘fear’ or even 'terror' which now had been replaced with ‘awesome’:

The continued operation of all the functions in the state of freedom is an awesome way to live. It bears no resemblance to the stark emptiness that fear might paint it to be. People who tell me they don’t want to give up the personal because they believe they would be giving up love or joy or deep feeling don’t understand that the personal never existed. Nothing is given up. Love that appears to be personal is based on a mind-constructed sense of being separate. Love in this separate state involves a longing to merge with an other in order to be fulfilled. From the perspective of the vastness, the other does not exist. When the vastness sees everything out of itself to be made of itself, this is the ultimate intimacy. The moment-to-moment flavor of the vastness undulating within itself as it perceives itself through every particle of itself everywhere brings a love that is limitless, far surpassing anything the mind could construct as the ideal love it seeks.

Joy and pleasure are also awesome in their nonpersonal appearances. 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.

These eyes see the incredible benevolence of the universe, which is completely trustworthy in all respects. There is nothing to fear. Everything in each moment is so well taken care of—and always has been. As the vastness peers out through these eyes onto the postmodern world, it feels moved to speak somehow to the myriad forms of suffering that are occurring.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that’s what ‘seeing the world thru the eyes of Source’ means.

She continues:

The way the experience took place made it clear that the emptiness thrusts itself forward without waiting for any go-ahead from the mind. The infinite does not wait for the mind to grasp it in order for it to exist. In fact, realization of the infinite is outside the sphere of the mind. The infinite realizes itself out of itself.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that’s what ‘seeing from prior to mind (aka impersonal perspective)’ means.

She is also exceptionally clear about the inherent contradictions of promoting spiritual practices:

Most practices imply the existence of a “me” who can do the practice and eventually accomplish a particular goal. But if a practice is undertaken by such a “me” in order to attain the non-locatable vastness of no personal self, then a conundrum or paradox presents itself: A personal doer is presumed to exist who must do the practices properly in order to achieve the realization that there is no personal doer.

But this reference to a personal doer runs totally counter to how the infinite exists. In this life, it has been clear ever since the experience at the bus stop that there never is, nor has there ever been, a personal doer anywhere. Prescribed techniques and lifestyles that insinuate an “I” who must “do” in order for awakening to occur presuppose a cause-and-effect relationship that simply does not exist. How can a personal “I” who doesn’t exist be the one who must do something in order for awakening to occur?

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that's exactly why it is said that SR is 'acausal'.

She continues:

Further, most spiritual practices presume that awakening is someplace else and must be reached or attained. But we are always the vastness—always! It is the naturally occurring human state. Where would the vastness go? Where could the infinite hide? What could we possibly need to do to become the vastness, when we already are it?

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that's why it is sometimes said that the truth is 'hidden in plain sight' or that it is 'closer than our own breath'.

And to the still mind advocates:

In particular, there are spiritual traditions that imply that the mind must be stopped for the vastness to he realized. The assumption is that the relative activity of mind correlates with awakening. Of course, if a practice is undertaken to quiet or stop the mind, the result may be a quiet mind. But the infinite is not perceived through or grasped by the mind. The infinite realizes itself…

Then there is the notion that we must stop the mind in order to be free. But who will stop the mind? Like everything else, the mind is just what it is. A mind that generates thoughts is not a problem; it is simply doing what minds do. The mind is made of the same vast emptiness as everything. Whether the mind is active or quiet, this emptiness never changes. Nor does the infinite wait for the mind to do or stop doing something in order for the vastness to reveal itself to itself. If the mind should stop, it simply does so as part of the unfathomable mystery.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

Bingo! That’s why it is called Self-realization, not mind-realization.

Now, Suzanne argues that, since she didn’t follow any specific practices to realize no-self, she now cannot encourage them. But what about her TM practice? But she has a valid point:

Strict practices may encourage the creation of more ideas about what the awakened state looks like as the mind attempts to figure out or approximate it. But how can the mind approximate what it cannot grasp? The vastness is unimaginable. Although it is always present, the mind cannot recognize it because the infinite is not perceived through the mind. The infinite perceives itself.

The contact of the mind with the emptiness of no personal reference point should never be taken to be the direct experience of the vastness, which in any case does not go through the mind. Rather, it is the experience of the minds response to the vastness, and nothing more.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that’s what ‘it has to be seen directly’ and ‘THIS cannot be imagined’ means. If it cannot be imagined, then it has to be seen directly.

Suzanne makes it clear though that she is not anti-practice, she just wants to put the entire idea of practice into perspective:

In no way, however, 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: There is no walker, but walking occurs; no driver, but driving occurs; no thinker, but thinking occurs. 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. If it is obvious to meditate, chant, journey, circumambulate, travel, set up an altar, eat certain foods, perform certain acts, or visit certain teachers, these will be done, as things have always been done, by the mysterious, non-locatable doer that is behind everything. To base such practices on the idea that if they aren’t done, you won’t realize the vastness you already are—and will therefore be a spiritual failure—is to found your life on the successful functioning of some nonexistent “me.”

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

Also interesting, based on her work as a psychotherapist, which gave her “a front row seat in the theater of human suffering”, she points out that our identity is more than just an idea in the mind:

Everyone I’ve worked with has become aware that they have constructed their “identities” out of information received by inference. They have inferred who they are from what other people have said to or about them and from the ways other people have treated them. Based on an interpretation of what all this information means about them, they have constructed who they take themselves to be. For example, Dad ignored me, therefore I must be unlovable or uninteresting. Or Mom always called me lazy, therefore it must be true.

These constructs exist in multiple spheres, not just in the mind. Personal reference points can be constructed in the emotional, physical, and energetic spheres as well. These multiple reference points for a sense of who we take ourselves to be can seem confusing at first, but all of them operate in a similar manner: They pass something off for what it’s not. In the mind sphere, thoughts and ideas are passed off as who one really is. In the emotional sphere, it’s feelings; in the physical sphere, sensations; in the energetic sphere, energetic vibrations or patterns.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

Dispenza made a similar point.

She also stresses the importance of "seeing things for what they are":

Thoughts and ideas are never a problem unless they are taken to be something they are not. If they are seen to be just thoughts and ideas, then they are not being identified with. Seeing things to be only and exactly what they are is the state of realization itself, because this is how the vastness always sees everything. To see things for what they are is to see with the eyes of the vastness itself. This seeing is always occurring, whether or not we are consciously aware of it…

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

And that's basically what 'seeing the real as real and the false as false' means.

About the false sense of separation:

The most common predicament people bring to me is the experience of feeling “cut off’ from the infinite. They find this particularly painful if they have had clear experiences of the vastness which they then feel have “gone away.” They want to know how they can stay in contact with the infinite at all times. This very question contains two implicit assumptions that pass themselves off as truth—that there is an “I” who is cut off from the infinite who could “apply itself’ to reconnecting if it had the proper technique, and that the infinite has gone somewhere. These are prime examples of how ideas masquerade as truth.

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.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

At the end, Suzanne sums it all up quite nicely:

The vastness carries a non-personal desire to experience itself. This appears to be the purpose of human life—for the vastness to meet itself everywhere it turns…

The vastness created these human circuitries in order to have an experience of itself out of itself that it couldn’t have without them. Through this humanness, the substance we are all made of has an opportunity to love itself—and the love of the infinite for itself is awesome. The words “love,” “bliss,” and “ecstasy” only begin to describe the hugeness of the infinite’s appreciation of itself that occurs through these circuitries.

We are all in this together. We are all made of the same infinite substance, and when a number of circuitries are consciously participating in the infinite simultaneously, there is a substantial increase in the volume of the love the infinite experiences for itself. This is the power of what has been called community. The wondrousness, the love, the ecstasy, the bliss of the infinite is constantly increasing as it surges within itself in a never-ending crescendo. There is no end to the vastness becoming vaster as it undulates within itself and amplifies the ecstatic love it has for itself out of itself.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Chapter 9

Now, compare what Suzanne just said to what A-H have written in their first book:

You knew then, before your physical birth, that you were “Source Energy” specifically focused in this physical body, and you knew that the physical person you would become could never be separated from that which you came from. You understood then, your eternal connection to that Source Energy.

You said, “I will love pouring myself into this physical body, into physical time-space-reality, for that environment will cause me to focus the powerful Energy that is me into something more specific. And in the specifics of that focus, there will be powerful motion forward—and joy.”

Well-Being is the basis of this Universe. Well-Being is the basis of All-That-Is. It flows to you and through you. You have only to allow it. Like the air you breathe, you have only to open, relax, and draw it into your Being.

This book is about consciously allowing your natural connection to the Stream of Well-Being. It is about remembering who you really are so that you can get on with the creation of your life experience in the way you intended before you came forth into this physical body, and into this magnificent Leading-Edge experience... where you fully intended to express your freedom in endless, joyous, co-creative ways.

Can you understand how much Well-Being is flowing to you? Do you understand how much orchestration of circumstances and events on your behalf is available to you? Do you understand how adored you are? Do you understand how the creation of this planet, the creation of this Universe, fits together for the perfection of your experience? Do you understand how beloved you are, how blessed you are, how adored you are, and what an integral part of this creative process you are? We want you to.

Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks, Ask and It Is Given

I'd say, same perspective, just tailored to a different audience.

[zendancer]

Good stuff!

[Reefs]

Epilogue – Living the Vastness

There is a short Q&A session at the end of the book, just a couple of pages, which could be considered a good summary of Suzanne’s ‘teaching’...


To practice or not to practice:

Q: You say you can’t really recommend any practices because there is no doer to do them. What about those of us who have not had bus stop experiences like you have? What do we do in the meantime?

A: Whatever is being done by the non-locatable doer that has always been the doer. There isn’t a you who has to decide what needs to be done in order for doing to happen. I’m not saying there are no spiritual practices. There is just no practitioner. When practices are based on getting a someone to do the practice properly so the right result will be achieved, they sustain and even amplify the belief in a separate, individual self.

The non-locatable doer that’s behind everything shows itself in obvious ways. If it’s obvious to meditate, you’ll be meditating. If it’s obvious to be politically active, you’ll be politically active. There’s not a someone who has to do your life in a particular way for it to be worthwhile or valuable. There is no one to whom any of it refers—thoughts, feelings, actions, events. It just is what it is and always has been. It’s truly awesome.

We experience this awe when we look at nature— at trees or flowers or mountains or oceans. “Aren’t they incredible?’’ we say. It seems easy to see there is no locatable doer behind nature; there is not a someone to whom it refers. Yet people tend to feel that they are separate from the natural sphere. They recognize that nature is awesome in its mysteriousness, but they take their own lives to be about a someone who is responsible for making things happen. If certain things are occurring, it’s interpreted to mean something about this illusory someone, and if other things are occurring, it means something else. Then they go into therapy to try to change themselves—to make themselves into a better someone so they can have a better life.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Epilogue

Volition vs. Non-volition:

Q: What about the experience of choosing one action or direction over another?

A: The moment-to-moment experience here is that it’s a choiceless life because there is no one choosing. Actions are never preceded by thoughts or feelings or by any attempt to figure things out. Everything is very immediate. Choicelessness is the experience of the obvious in a moment-to-moment way.

Of course, in most lives there is the sense that there is a “me” making choices and that, based on these choices, particular actions occur. There are ideas about who is choosing and ideas about what constitutes the right choice as opposed to the wrong one. These ideas set up what I call the sphere of the constructed reference point. When the eyes of this reference point are being seen through rather than the eyes of the vastness, it looks to the mind like only a very limited range of actions is available, when in fact the possibilities are limitless. The mind then appropriates the action and says, “I did it,” and the action appears to relate to a someone behind it. But this never changes the fact that there is never a personal doer behind anything. Because the process is so infinite and ungraspable, the mind creates the notion of choice in an attempt to understand it.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Epilogue

Personal vs. Impersonal:

Q: Is the vastness you are referring to perceived as love and light?

A: The mind has to know that it can’t grasp what I’m about to describe. The vastness is perceiving itself out of itself at every moment within every particle of itself everywhere simultaneously. This is what I call the sense organ of the infinite. It doesn’t have a flavor to it; it is simply perceiving itself.

The moment the circuitry begins to consciously participate, the vastness has a particular flavor. I can’t describe it in personal terms because everything I see now is only apparently personal. Instead of light or love, I would use the term undulation—the undulation of the vastness.

The mind can’t grasp this. But who you are is always grasping itself all the time. There’s no one that has to start grasping for it to be grasping itself. It is occurring simultaneously with everything that is taken to be who you are. If you want to call it love, I’ll agree, but I wouldn't want it to be mistaken for the love that refers to a personal self.

The vastness definitely experiences pleasure in experiencing itself. As a matter of fact, this pleasure seems to be the purpose of human life—to have the human circuitry consciously participate in the sense organ of the vastness that it is made of. After all, it is who we all are. It’s hard to give a visual description because it lies outside the sphere of perception. What I can say is that every form that is ordinarily taken to be full of something—particular importance or meaning to a particular reference point, for example—is seen to be empty. It’s like a line drawn in the sand. The line as well as what is inside and outside of it are all made of the same sand.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Epilogue

Effort vs. Grace:

Q: Is there anything I can do to accelerate this happening in my case? Or is it just grace?

A: There is no one I could instruct to do something to make you the vastness. That’s already and always who you are. The instruction to perform certain practices is predicated on a reference point, but to the vastness this reference point simply doesn’t exist. The question of who can do what to get to where you already are seems absurd.

As to whether it happens by grace, I don’t know. I was just standing at a bus stop. There’s an incredible mysteriousness about all of this. That which is the non-locatable doer is taking care of everything all the time in such infinitely mysterious ways.

Look at this world. What if trees or clouds or planets or stars waited for the mind to figure them out in order for them to exist? Or imagine if the body waited for the mind to figure out how to grow a baby before it became pregnant. “How do I make this brain? Where do I put this heart? Maybe I should get the blood moving now.” This is all taken care of by that which lies so completely outside of the mind’s ability to perceive it that trust isn’t even an issue.

That’s why I give only two suggestions. The first is to see things to be just what they are, because that is how the vastness is always seeing things. Thoughts are thoughts. Emotions are emotions. The body is just the body. It’s the mind’s interpretation of things that ends up creating suffering—the sense that there is a problem, that fear or anger or sadness means there’s something wrong with me, that certain emotions or experiences have to be eliminated for me to be OK, that something needs to be practiced or achieved in order to become the infinite. The mind is constantly interpreting in this way, while the vastness just looks around and sees that things are just what they are.

The second suggestion, which is actually a nonsuggestion, is to follow the obvious, because that is how the mysterious doer behind everyone’s life is constantly revealing the truth of each moment. Now I'm not saying you need to figure out what the obvious is and then follow it. The mind doesn’t usually perceive the obvious, and it tends to devalue what it can’t perceive. Take the expression “it's just too obvious,” for example. It’s not complicated or painful enough. The mind is drawn to complexity and struggle. That’s the sphere of the mind.

Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite, Epilogue

[Xiao]

For those who were curious about her daughter, she seems to have held up well and remembers her mother fondly:

ariellegiusto.com/blawg/2019/10/21/meandering-ode-to-mother