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.