A Rare Spontaneous Awakening - By Nobody (a.k.a. Jon Mundy)
http://myspiritualselfhelp.com/articles/1294/1/A-Rare-Spontaneous-Awakening---By-Nobody-aka-Jon-Mundy/Page1.html
Wan Ibrahim
Wan Ibrahim is the owner of MySpiritualSelfHelp.com, a website that was created to share the wisdom for spiritual living. He also shares his insights, tips and stories about happiness, relationship and success from a different point of view at his Blog - Detached, and in the context of spirituality at Personal Blog Section.By Wan Ibrahim
Published on 10/23/2008
Although she was a seasoned meditator, Segal could not figure out what had happened. It was as though she no longer had a personality. She no longer had any wants or needs, no cravings or desires. She found herself being an observer rather than a projector of her internal assumptions and prejudices. While she continued to live a normal life, she knew that everything had changed for her.
This is the fifth part of article entitled, “The Importance of Being Nobody”.
One of the best descriptions of a sudden mystical awakening which was not stimulated by crash and burn experience comes from Suzanne Segal (1945-1997, USA), author of the book Collision with the Infinite. At the time, she was a 27-year-old pregnant American woman about to board a bus in Paris when. . . "I lifted my right foot to step into the bus and collided head-on with an invisible force that entered my awareness like a silently exploding stick of dynamite, blowing the door of my usual consciousness open and off its hinges. What I had previously called 'me' was forcefully pushed out of its usual location inside me into a new location that was approximately a foot behind and to the left of my head. 'I' was now behind my body looking out at the world without using the body's eyes."
Although she was a seasoned meditator, Segal could not figure out what had happened. It was as though she no longer had a personality. She no longer had any wants or needs, no cravings or desires. She found herself being an observer rather than a projector of her internal assumptions and prejudices. While she continued to live a normal life, she knew that everything had changed for her.
Segal started going to psychologists to find out what had happened to her, but no one could figure it out. She was eventually diagnosed with a "dissociative personality disorder." To psychologists, not having wants or needs meant she no longer had a personality. Finally, one of her therapists figured out that she had experienced the complete disintegration of the ego, which some might equate with insanity. Egolessness actually means that one is saner than most people.
"What is absent in enlightenment is duality, 'me' as a separate entity and "you" as another separate entity. Consciousness is all there is." - Ramesh Belsekar.
We rely on our belief systems and "stories" for our identity. Being caught in stories or dramas is to be in conflict with or divided from other human beings whose identities are based on a set of beliefs different from our own. We get frustrated when life puts us in a box that pins us down as a specific person. I never cared for "Reverend," and only use the title at weddings and funerals. Even then it is not needed. People put a label on you when you are a Reverend. I've had people say to me, "You probably don't think this is right but . . ." Then they tell me something, assuming I had a prejudice against what was being said. Ministers are apparently supposed to be judgmental.
When I was a young minister back in the late 60's, I (like many of my colleagues) wore a clerical collar. I stopped wearing it as I realized it was a way of making myself "special." The catholic folks in Brooklyn, near where I lived, practically tripped over themselves when they saw me and everyone stared at my neck. It was quite disconcerting. I even had an Irish Catholic policeman apologize once for stopping me when he saw the collar. He said, "I know you didn't see that sign Father."
Thoreau says we should watch out for any profession which requires that we wear special clothes. I was watching a motorcycle policeman while stopped at a stop light. He was dressed in all black with the leather boots that came almost up to his knees, the gun, and the badge the whole nine yards. The more well-defined our position, the harder it is to be free. A woman friend once told me that her husband, who was a doctor, could not be in a social situation for more than ten minutes without letting people know that he was a "doctor." The more defined the position, the harder it is to be free. Be glad not to be famous. Famous people (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Freddie Prince, Princess Diana, and Anna Nicole Smith) have a very difficult time living in this world which becomes for them, increasingly artificial.
"Routinely, people discover that the life of a celebrity is onerous and burdensome once the novelty has worn off." - Dr. David Hawkins.
One month before she died, Marilyn Monroe did a recording for Life magazine called "Marilyn on Marilyn." She talked very frankly about her feelings about herself and the image that had been made of her by Hollywood. She saw it as a kind of cardboard cartoon character. She was clear that it was all an empty fantasy. Hollywood had created an image of a sex goddess and it wasn't her – it was like she was some sort of artificial cartoon character. And, she says, in the most poignant way, "And, I let them do it." It was not, however, who she was. She was just Norma Jean.
"It stirs up envy, fame does. People feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you and it won't hurt your feelings like it's happening to your clothing." - Marilyn Monroe.
Everything we perceive as the outside world is an attempt to maintain ego identification. Almost everyone believes that identification is salvation. Yet dropping personal history – learning to die to oneself, stopping the world, and stepping outside of time — gives us a taste of eternity, freedom, and happiness. The goal of the mystic is the reabsorption of the soul into the infinite.
Aldous Huxley standing watching his house burn down, the Bellaire fires of 1961, said it was a marvelous clean feeling.
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself. It is due to your own estimation of it; and this you have the power to change at any moment." - Marcus Aurelius.
"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to prove it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not need and does not even want. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere." - A Course in Miracles.
"Through Love, I have reached a place where no trace of Love remains, where "I" and "we" and the painting of existence have all been forgotten and left behind. As long as you are 'you', you will be miserable and impoverished." - Javad Nurbakhsh.
"To truly 'know' is to 'be', at which point one does not know; instead one is." - Dr. David Hawkins.
No one is special, different or better than anyone else. Our bodies have come through different terrains of biology, time, geography, and social circumstances. From the mystic's point of view, the more "nothing" we are the better for sanity. Gaining sanity, we find that what happens to our personal self, our hopes and dreams, our hurts and pains is not a matter of life and death seriousness. We discover a Self beyond selfishness, a place which is formless, spaceless, timeless, infinite and empty.
To be continued (last part): It is as it is.
One of the best descriptions of a sudden mystical awakening which was not stimulated by crash and burn experience comes from Suzanne Segal (1945-1997, USA), author of the book Collision with the Infinite. At the time, she was a 27-year-old pregnant American woman about to board a bus in Paris when. . . "I lifted my right foot to step into the bus and collided head-on with an invisible force that entered my awareness like a silently exploding stick of dynamite, blowing the door of my usual consciousness open and off its hinges. What I had previously called 'me' was forcefully pushed out of its usual location inside me into a new location that was approximately a foot behind and to the left of my head. 'I' was now behind my body looking out at the world without using the body's eyes."
Although she was a seasoned meditator, Segal could not figure out what had happened. It was as though she no longer had a personality. She no longer had any wants or needs, no cravings or desires. She found herself being an observer rather than a projector of her internal assumptions and prejudices. While she continued to live a normal life, she knew that everything had changed for her.
Segal started going to psychologists to find out what had happened to her, but no one could figure it out. She was eventually diagnosed with a "dissociative personality disorder." To psychologists, not having wants or needs meant she no longer had a personality. Finally, one of her therapists figured out that she had experienced the complete disintegration of the ego, which some might equate with insanity. Egolessness actually means that one is saner than most people.
"What is absent in enlightenment is duality, 'me' as a separate entity and "you" as another separate entity. Consciousness is all there is." - Ramesh Belsekar.
We rely on our belief systems and "stories" for our identity. Being caught in stories or dramas is to be in conflict with or divided from other human beings whose identities are based on a set of beliefs different from our own. We get frustrated when life puts us in a box that pins us down as a specific person. I never cared for "Reverend," and only use the title at weddings and funerals. Even then it is not needed. People put a label on you when you are a Reverend. I've had people say to me, "You probably don't think this is right but . . ." Then they tell me something, assuming I had a prejudice against what was being said. Ministers are apparently supposed to be judgmental.
When I was a young minister back in the late 60's, I (like many of my colleagues) wore a clerical collar. I stopped wearing it as I realized it was a way of making myself "special." The catholic folks in Brooklyn, near where I lived, practically tripped over themselves when they saw me and everyone stared at my neck. It was quite disconcerting. I even had an Irish Catholic policeman apologize once for stopping me when he saw the collar. He said, "I know you didn't see that sign Father."
Thoreau says we should watch out for any profession which requires that we wear special clothes. I was watching a motorcycle policeman while stopped at a stop light. He was dressed in all black with the leather boots that came almost up to his knees, the gun, and the badge the whole nine yards. The more well-defined our position, the harder it is to be free. A woman friend once told me that her husband, who was a doctor, could not be in a social situation for more than ten minutes without letting people know that he was a "doctor." The more defined the position, the harder it is to be free. Be glad not to be famous. Famous people (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Freddie Prince, Princess Diana, and Anna Nicole Smith) have a very difficult time living in this world which becomes for them, increasingly artificial.
"Routinely, people discover that the life of a celebrity is onerous and burdensome once the novelty has worn off." - Dr. David Hawkins.
One month before she died, Marilyn Monroe did a recording for Life magazine called "Marilyn on Marilyn." She talked very frankly about her feelings about herself and the image that had been made of her by Hollywood. She saw it as a kind of cardboard cartoon character. She was clear that it was all an empty fantasy. Hollywood had created an image of a sex goddess and it wasn't her – it was like she was some sort of artificial cartoon character. And, she says, in the most poignant way, "And, I let them do it." It was not, however, who she was. She was just Norma Jean.
"It stirs up envy, fame does. People feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you and it won't hurt your feelings like it's happening to your clothing." - Marilyn Monroe.
Everything we perceive as the outside world is an attempt to maintain ego identification. Almost everyone believes that identification is salvation. Yet dropping personal history – learning to die to oneself, stopping the world, and stepping outside of time — gives us a taste of eternity, freedom, and happiness. The goal of the mystic is the reabsorption of the soul into the infinite.
Aldous Huxley standing watching his house burn down, the Bellaire fires of 1961, said it was a marvelous clean feeling.
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself. It is due to your own estimation of it; and this you have the power to change at any moment." - Marcus Aurelius.
"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to prove it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not need and does not even want. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere." - A Course in Miracles.
"Through Love, I have reached a place where no trace of Love remains, where "I" and "we" and the painting of existence have all been forgotten and left behind. As long as you are 'you', you will be miserable and impoverished." - Javad Nurbakhsh.
"To truly 'know' is to 'be', at which point one does not know; instead one is." - Dr. David Hawkins.
No one is special, different or better than anyone else. Our bodies have come through different terrains of biology, time, geography, and social circumstances. From the mystic's point of view, the more "nothing" we are the better for sanity. Gaining sanity, we find that what happens to our personal self, our hopes and dreams, our hurts and pains is not a matter of life and death seriousness. We discover a Self beyond selfishness, a place which is formless, spaceless, timeless, infinite and empty.
To be continued (last part): It is as it is.