Hello and welcome to Conscious TV
My name is Renate McNay
Today, in this studio with me is
Suzanne Foxton
Hello Suzanne
Hi Renate
Renate: Grace was shining on Suzanne,
and she awakened while she was washing dishes,
and we are going to find out the story about it.
So can you talk us through, Suzanne,
how that happened and when it happened?
Suzanne: Well,
the biggest sort of quality of it happening was that...
what I was looking for was always
right there in the first place, so,
I can tell the story of what seemed
to happen leading up to that...
But just to preface it by saying
it doesn't really matter
it's not important.
And this kind of thing seems
to happen in so many
different ways
for different people...
But I was going through some
therapy.
Three years ago or so,
and was at a real...
I was very suicidal and
it was just the classic existential crisis.
Renate: Yes, you were in a depression?
Suzanne: Oh yes, big depression.
Renate: Yes.
Suzanne: No meaning, just looking at a big void.
And many people will know just
what I'm talking about.
It was terrible, terrible. It was awful, it was hell.
And I had a sort of big breakdown
and went into hospital
and I was very, very malnourished and underweight,
and I spent a lot of time just getting my health back...
I started therapy for the depression
and I was probably
just very fortunate that the person
who was there to help me
was a little bit of a traditional seeker
I suppose, of enlightenment
or whatever
you might call it,
and he introduced this a little bit
into the therapy.
Most of the therapy
had a lot to do with
just peeling away
an incredible sense of
worthlessness
that really came into it a lot.
And feeling utterly unworthy which is,
I suppose, the big problem with
the ego:
it's just a little constructed
thing that’s given away too much
responsibility and feels
really unworthy. So...
Renate: So you had a difficult
childhood. I guess?
Suzanne: Well, I had
some difficulties in childhood
but I wouldn't blame my parents...
Renate: Sure.
Suzanne: ...at all, you know, it’s...
We have no control over
these things,
and I know the way I responded
was quite bad, rather than
what actually
might have happened to me; so that was quite
difficult and I had
a very difficult adolescence,
I suppose,
and did lots of experimenting
with altering my state of mind.
And I was very dependent
on alcohol
and other substances
and was just basically desperate
to be anywhere
but where I was;
desperate to get out of
my head in any way I could.
Whatever was in front of me was never enough
it was never good enough,
or else it was terrible.
And I wanted to leave.
I never could just be there,
just be there,
so when I had this sort of big existential crisis
or whatever [voice becoming shaky],
depression and suicide
and all that, which so many people go through,
I was really suffering;
it was really awful.
I suppose the therapy substituted
with what other people
might practice in other ways,
you know. It was just a peeling
away of the ego
and the need to be validated. And in some strange
convoluted way.
I was validated
and loved by the therapist,
and also by my friends and family.
And that sense of worthlessness
got peeled away through that;
and just sort of a being
and a presence
with other people
became enjoyable
and I was able to appreciate it.
And then I had this thing
with the knife [laughing],
washing up.
Renate: Yes, so tell us that thing with the knife.
Suzanne: Well, the thing with the knife:
I was just washing up and was...
I had never been a traditional
seeker in the way
that some people are,
but I had these recently
introduced ideas about it
about the meaning of life,
what is it? What is...?
We are all one,
you know, that kind of thing,
very vague and nebulous.
But then I looked at the knife
and it just seemed to be
very much itself.
I don't know...
Renate: So the knife was itself?
Suzanne: The knife became
very 'knife-ish' [laughing]
it's very, very,
very hard to describe,
except that I then just saw
that everything had always been
like that, the whole time,
with maybe something
in the way of it
(we could call that the ego if you like;
something like that).
And I was just not able
to fully appreciate it until then.
But I think if I could just say,
it's maybe a bit dangerous
in a way to describe
a certain happening,
a big event that seems to happen
and an awakening ‘ah-ha!’ moment,
because often...
that's not the case, I think,
with some people; it’s a very gradual,
gentle sort of a thing.
But for me it just had to be “Whoa"
"Whoa" here I am!” [laughs]
Renate: Yes.
Suzanne: And whatever I was looking for
was this knife and whatever else
happened to be around.
Renate: Yes. So what happened
after you saw the real
nature in the knife [laughing]?
Suzanne: Well, what happened?
It doesn't really matter,
but I did have a sort of a moment
there where I was crouching
on the kitchen floor going “Whoa!”
a bit like Bill and Ted in
their ‘Excellent Adventure’ “Whoa, whoa!”
But it didn’t really last that long,
and that was kind of fun.
A sort of internal visual thing
of all creation forming in on
itself again and again
and kind of winking in and out
of existence over and over.
Something like that.
It's very hard to describe.
Renate: So you knew
what you were experiencing in
this moment?
You didn’t have any doubts coming in,
or you didn't have any thought like,
“Oh my God, I am getting crazy!”?
Suzanne: Yes, well, I think that
afterwards, yes I did |laughing]!
I got some sort of
a physiological, phenomenal thing
where I was... I felt like I was
seeing things
maybe slightly above
the usual where the eyes
come out
And I did think...
And I was still in therapy
and I was thinking "Am I going nuts?"
And so I was just searching
on the internet,
as one does these days,
and I came across
Stanley Sobottka's Course
in Consciousness.
He’s a quantum physicist at
the University Of Virginia
and he wrote...
He had a whole tome of about
two hundred pages, about
the scientific way
of getting there.
He was an atomic physicist
so he was looking at the atom
and how it’s all spaced,
and that there don't seem to be
any rules and
there doesn’t seem to be anything
there and how he came to some
kind of enlightenment through that.
Renate: O really?
Suzanne: Yeah. And at the end of
of that tome, Tony Parsons
was cited.
Which he’s quite local;
he's the only one in UK that was cited.
And so I went to see him,
and just some of the words that
he used just... It just reassured
my mind that
it wasn't going mad, you know;
that it was just...
seeing things very clearly
and without some of
the usual safeguards that
the mind puts in place perhaps.
And that’s why my perspective
was slightly different;
things would seem to actually
visually disappear
and that kind of thing.
And that really doesn't seem to be
an issue at the moment
it just.. Everything seems very
much itself and it always has done.
Renate: Yes. So when you say,
"Things started disappearing" -
is that something you still experience?
Suzanne: Not really. I mean,
a lot of people who write and
talk about this kind of thing
they do go on about the
importance of not thinking and
you must not think
and clear your mind of thoughts.
And if I do... If my mind doesn't seem
to be terribly engaged, you know
with thinking and planning
and 'whatever-ing', then yes
sometimes actual physical
objects can just seem to waver
around a bit, you know...
But I wouldn’t say this is
a necessary thing, or a thing
that people should be
looking for, it’s just,
you know the mind is going
to do funny things sometimes.