I have this fear of dissolution when I get close. It's kind of the loss
of identity that I'm going to end. Have you ever experienced something like that?
I've never experienced the disappearance of myself. I know it is a creation of my mind. I
am aware of it, but the fear is true. What do you fear disappearing? What kind of defines me as of
now? That kind of defines me. What makes me? You mean your thoughts, your feelings, your ideas,
your name, your form? Yes, well, you're right. All that is going to disappear. Yes,
I mean, I understand the theory, but no, it's not. It's not a theory. That's just
regular practice. It's nothing very mysterious about that. It's just,
you know, your name, your form, everything you know about yourself. Everything you know
about yourself is going to disappear. Yeah, are you afraid of going to sleep at night?
No, well, when you go to sleep at night, everything you know about yourself disappears.
Yeah, all your thoughts, your feelings, your world, your body, all the knowledge that you
have accumulated, all your hopes, everything disappears. And yet, not only do you not fear it,
you actually look forward to it. Why do you look forward to it? Precisely because all of
that is going to disappear. It's such a relief when it all disappears. It's such a burden to
carry that around all day long. It's nice to put it down. That's why we look forward
to the peace of sleep. Yeah, you never, when you fall asleep, do you feel, "I'm a little reluctant
to go to bed because I'm afraid I'm going to cease to exist"? Why don't you feel that?
Because you don't experience it. It is your repeated experience that when you go to sleep,
you do not cease to be, but everything you have carried around with yourself,
or your knowledge or your ideas or your sensations or your perceptions, they give you a break. And
that's why it's so peaceful. That's why you're looking forward to it. Why are you
afraid of letting the collection of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions disappear
if you think you're going to lose? I don't know why, but I know it is a creation of the mind,
finding a way to stay away from you. See, the reason we fear it is because we have invested
our identity in something that comes and goes. We have invested our identity in an object or a
collection of objects. And by objects, I don't just mean physical objects. I don't just mean
the body. I mean ideas and knowledge and history and collections of sensations that we know as the
body. We have invested our identity. When I mean invested our identity, I mean our essential being
of pure awareness or the simple experience of being aware has mixed itself up with a collection
of thoughts and feelings to such an extent that it can no longer distinguish itself apart from those
thoughts and feelings. So instead of thinking, "I have thoughts and feelings," we feel, "I am
thoughts and feelings." Instead of thinking that, instead of thinking and feeling that thoughts,
feelings, sensations, and perceptions are things that visit me from time to time and then leave me,
leaving me in the peace of my true nature, we feel instead, "I am this little cluster of thoughts and
feelings called this body-mind." And therefore, when it disappears, which it does regularly,
we feel a little bit of me is going to go with it because I have invested
my identity in them. We feel that I am going to disappear or I am going to die. And this is one
of the essential forms of the separate self. This feeling that I am going to disappear. The other
essential form of the separate self is that I lack something because an object can never be complete.
There's no such thing as a complete object. So whenever we identify ourselves as an object,
we feel not only a sense of fear, that's the fear of disappearing,
but we also feel that we are incomplete. And therefore, fear and desire are the two activities,
the essential activities of the separate self. So in you, the sense of separation expresses
itself more as a fear of disappearing than as the desire for something. But in other people,
it sometimes the longing-seeking aspect is stronger than the fear aspect.
So the remedy for this situation is to know yourself as you truly are,
to know what you essentially are. When I say to know that, I don't mean to agree conceptually
with me that we are pure awareness. I mean to go to the experience, go to it in you, understand,
in inverted commas, go to the experience of being aware and to see that that experience
has never left you. In fact, there's not a you that has that experience. That you,
and that experience, that is you, that this simple presence of knowing, the awareness of being,
or the experience of being aware, it's just totally constant in your life. It's just,
it's never been extinguished. It's never gone anywhere. It's only if we allow that to become
mixed up with a collection of thoughts and feelings so exclusively that we can no longer
distinguish the difference between them, that we then fear disappearance. So the remedy for this
fear is very simple. Just look at yourself, ask yourself, "What do I refer to when I say 'I'?"
Go, then, take the thought, "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, 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 know. I am aware of being healthy. I am aware of being
wealthy. I'm aware of being unhappy." It's always this "I am aware" 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 and aware of my feelings. I'm aware of the sight of this
room," now emphasize the "I am aware." "I am aware of thoughts. I am aware of feeling sick.
I am aware of the sight of this room." Let the thoughts, the sight of this room, the feeling,
let them just go out of focus. Deep focus on the ponder 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,
that shine that awareness on the experience of being aware. In other words, on itself and rest.
Rest and allow your attention to come back to itself, just to rest in itself. And that, it is
that experience is peace itself. And as you abide as that more and more, your old identity, the 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 to them. You don't have to get rid of them. You don't have to worry about this
old identity. It will just gradually wither away as a result of neglect because it is no longer
being fed by your attention or interest. Just give your attention. When I say attention, I don't mean
think about it intellectually, although it's fine to start thinking intellectually. But when I mean
give your loving attention to yourself, 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 from the background, this certainty begins to emerge. That'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,
I am not just aware. I am eternally aware. I have never experienced myself disappearing. I
have never been hurt. I've never been harmed. No experience has ever stained me or left a trace on
me. I'm totally intimate with all experience. I'm 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 the experience, but no experience harms me
or stains me or every experience just leaves me in my pristine, open, empty, shiny knowing presence.
Just abide as that. This memory, not a memory from the past, but this memory from the depths of your
being, will just come and it will become as a kind of conviction. I never go anywhere. I cannot be
harmed. I don't die. You'll just forget about your fear of death. It just will no longer visit you.
So don't worry about the fear of disappearing. Give your attention to yourself. Thank you.