Which account of awakening in the previous post is more authentic?

OK, so let me identify the passages first. The first is by Somerset Maugham, from this novel, THE RAZOR'S EDGE. The awakening is reported by Larry, the character in the novel who has been seeking all his life and finally finds what he had been looking for with the Advaita gurus in India. 

The second passage is by from an interview with Annette Knopp, from the book ORDINARY WOMEN, EXTRAORDINARY WISDOM, by Rita Marie Robinson (O Books, 2007). The teacher referenced in the passage is Isaac Shapiro.

My own take on it is that the second passage is the most authentic. Although there is a place in the first passage where the self seems to fall away, most of the passage is about what happens TO the self -- rather like what someone might imagine enlightenment to be. I did research just a bit and found out that Maugham went to India in the 1930s (RAZOR was published in 1943), but according to his journal, he evidently fell into a deep sleep precipitated by the energy of the guru and didn't remember what happened to him! So perhaps he just imagined what might have happened if he'd been awake. I want to explore this more,though, and what I say here shouldn't be taken as definitive.