Went to the Boulder public library and picked up Collision with the Infinite by Suzanne Segal. It’s a fairly short book, so I was able to power through it in a few hours, and it was a really good read! It’s an autobiography of sorts (excerpt here), where Suzanne shares a radical experience she had that permanently transformed her consciousness, after which she was left (quite permanently) with no sense of an “I” or doer.
Instead of being totally thrilled, she was instead completely panicked (although there was no “I” panicking). For 11 years after which she continued to find out why her sense of “I” had disappeared, why everything was happening anyway, and there was still so much fear and terror arising. She went through about 12 therapists, each who pathologized her condition (incorrectly), all while earning a PH.d in counseling psychology!!! She finally consulted with the spiritual traditions, and was given a much better diagnosis…
Each teacher she talked to about her experience verified that she had indeed achieved a deep recognition of no-self. The fear finally subsided and she awoke then to not only the emptiness of self, but also to the emptiness of other, and in the recogition that there was no solid & fixed other, that there was infinite fullness! All in All, a beautiful and inspiring work….
