Madhuri

This article was written by Madhuri for, and posted on, Osho News.

Madhuri’s review of Suzanne Segal’s book subtitled, A Life Beyond the Personal Self.

Collision with the Infinite:
A Life Beyond the Personal Self
by Suzanne Segal
1996, Blue Dove Press, San Diego, California
170 pages

An astonishing story that resonates with you for a long time after you’ve read the final page.

A young American woman, ex-TM practitioner, pregnant, is stepping up onto a bus in Paris when she is hit by a huge whammy of who-knows-what. Her “I” vanishes in that instant, never to return.

She then spends 10 years in hell, her mind – and a series of therapists – convinced that there is something very wrong with her. Her marriage ends, and there is an intense passage about giving birth while in this limbo state.

Only when she discovers Buddhism does she find a context for her experience; and the bliss begins. “…This life is now lived in a state wherein the infinite is perceived as residing within an infinity. This is truly a non-experience that defies description, yet it seems to be how the infinite naturally shows itself to itself.

“There is no end to all this, just as there was no beginning. There are constant “bus hits,” as I now call them, in which the infinite expands yet again and again. 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.”

Someone asked her if what she is referring to is perceived as love and light. She replies:

“…Instead of light or love, I would use the term undulation – the undulation of the vastness. For example, if you are sitting in a hot bath and don’t move, you don’t feel the heat of the water. As soon as you move, the heat is felt. In the same way, the human circuitry gives the vastness the possibility of experiencing its own vastness through what I call undulation… 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 what we all are. It’s hard to give a visual description because it lies outside the sphere of perception…”

This writer’s description of what happened to her is the clearest I’ve ever read on the subject. We learn that the body, mind, emotions, still remain, just the one-who-is-experiencing them is no more.

A simple, straightforward story, both hair-raising and fascinating. One of those rare books I hope to get a few copies of to share around.