Suffering occurs when something is taken for what it's not , rather than for what it is.

Collision with the Infinite: A Life Beyond the Personal Self

I moved down the street like a cloud of awareness following a body that seemed simultaneously familiar and foreign. There was an incomprehensible attachment to that body, although it no longer felt like "mine". It continued to send out signals of its sensory perception, yet how or where those signals wwere being received was beyond comprehension.

I lifted my right foot to step up 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, splitting me in two. In the gaping space that appeared, 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.

These eyes see the incredible benevolence of the universe, which is completely trustworthy in all respects. There is nothing to fear. Everything in each moment is so well taken care of - and always has been.

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.

Instead of experiencing through the physical senses, I was now bobbing behind the body like a buoy at sea, cut loose from sensory solidity, separated from and witnessing the body from a vast distance.