Collision with the Infinite

This is a fascinating autobiography of a woman who experienced the disappearance of a personal identity while getting on a bus. Only after a decade, she discovered what had really happened.

She tells us her story, full of struggle and confusion, that had lasted for more than a decade, a period that was full of terror, misunderstanding, and searching for the answers everywhere she could. But apparently, no one was able to give her the proper context of what was happening to her, until nearly a decade had passed.

At the bus station in Paris, she became enlightened. She achieved something that people are struggling to achieve for decades through intense meditation or any other means. Suzanne had some spiritual background. She became a TM teacher in her early twenties and had spent many hours in meditation, but the sudden realization was not anything that she was prepared for, or even heard of as possible. She thought that she had gone mad.

After numerous therapists, she nearly concluded that what had happened to her was a depersonalization disorder or insanity. But after hearing the conclusions of those therapists and psychologists, who clearly didn't understand what she was experiencing, decided to turn into spirituality again and find her answers there, which she did.

Her descriptions of what she calls the Vastness are very interesting to me, as I draw parallels and connect the dots with other teachers' descriptions, though she didn't think of herself as a teacher. Also, her point of view of living without a self, makes me wonder how the hell is that even possible.

The one thing I kind of disagree is the importance of a spiritual practice. She says that it's not as important as people like to think, because there is not a person inside a body who works towards enlightenment and does those practices. But if you ask me, that's misleading, because, if people think that they are already awoken, they will die without experiencing their true nature, because most of us are not lucky to have a sudden awakening at a bus station, like Suzanne had.