Just look at yourself.
Ask yourself: "What do I refer to when I say 'I'?
Go there!
Take the thought 'I'.
I am aware of my body,
I am aware of this room, I am aware of these words.
I am aware of my feelings, I am aware of my thoughts,
I am aware of, I am aware of, I am aware of,...
That's all your life consists of: 'I am aware of this, I am aware of that'
Just stop with the 'I am aware.'
Every experience contains it!
I am miserable, I am happy, I am sick,
I am aware of being healthy, I am aware of being wealthy,
I am aware of being unhappy.
It's always this 'I am aware'. It pervades your entire experience.
There is no experience without it!
Instead of giving your attention to what you are aware of:
I am aware of my thoughts, I am aware of my feelings, I am aware of the side of this room ...
... emphasize the 'I am aware!'
I am aware of thoughts, I am aware of feeling sick, ...
Let the thoughts, the feelings, etc. ... let them just go out of focus.
Focus on the first part of your experience: the 'I am aware'
Irrespective of what you are aware of.
It has never left you. You have never ceased to be this 'I am aware'
Just give that experience, the experience of being aware, give it your attention.
Instead of shining your attention on the object: the thought, the feeling, ...
Shine that awareness on the experience of being aware, in other words: on itself!
And rest. Allow your attention to come back to itself, just to rest in itself.
That experience is peace itself!
And as you abide as that more and more
your old identity, your old belief
that this aware being that I essentially am is identical to a cluster of thoughts and feelings
will just gradually purify itself of all those thoughts and feelings.
You don't have to do anything. You don't have to get rid of them.
You don't have to worry about this old identity.
It will just gradually whither away as a result of neglect.
Because it is no longer being fed by your attention or interest!
Just give your attention and when I say 'attention' I don't mean think about it intellectually,
although it's fine to start thinking intellectually.
I mean: give your loving attention to your Self,
to this that you know you are, that knows itself in you as the experience 'I am aware'
That's the cure for the fear of death!
Because as you abide as this 'being aware' ...
this certainty begins to emerge from the background ...
... it's like a memory that comes from the depths of your being
this memory of your own immortality, of your own eternity,
that I am not just aware, I am eternally aware.
I have never experienced myself disappearing!
I have never been hurt, I have never been harmed.
No experience has ever stained me or left a trace on me.
I am totally intimate with all experience!
I am not just a witnessing presence in the background of experience that has to hold the body-mind-world at a safe distance.
No, I am the knowing which floods all experience, which pervades all experience,
that is intimately one with all experience.
I take the shape of all experience, but no experience harms me or stains me.
Every experience just leaves me in my pristine, open, empty, shining, knowing presence.
Just abide as this memory.
Not a memory from the past, but this memory from the depths of your being.
It will just come and it will formulate itself in your mind as a kind of conviction!