Question:

Ektaji, I had COVID and went through extreme fear. I think the fear stemmed from my attachments to my family, wife, and kids. I have been walking the Advaita path for years. The silence is soothing (inexplicably beautiful), but the loneliness is threatening. The anxiety still shows up off and on. The fear is a sort of deterrent, I don’t know how to handle it.

Answer:

You have taken the stand of the body-mind and are firmly grabbing onto the Dvaitam belief that you are going to die. From that Dvaitam stand of fear, you are asking how to walk the pure Advaita path, but that cannot work, dear.

To begin with, you must correct your stance. Watch the Advaita Level I videos repeatedly [https://gnyanasangha.com/] until you see yourself as the infinite awareness in which appears and disappears, the body-mind along with the other body-minds. Take the correct stand of the witness and inquire into the following: 

• • Only when you recognize that you are not the body-mind, then only can you claim that you have been walking the path of Advaita for many years experientially. Otherwise, the claim is intellectual, dear. And an intellectual claim is self-foolery. Sadho! Dhoka kaaso kahiye? By whom are you getting fooled, dear?
  • Once you can get over the self-foolery, and the stand is corrected, you will SEE that:

‘You-the-all-pervading awareness’ witness the waking state,
‘You-the-all-pervading awareness’ witness the dreaming state,
‘You-the-all-pervading awareness’ witness the darkness of the deep sleep state.

• • See the truth in your own experience, that:

You are constant in all three 3 states. ‘You-the-all-pervading awareness’ are not limited; how can you say that you will die in one state? You are limitless and infinite.

• • Realize that:

The ‘I-sense’ is there where the body-mind is. The ‘I-sense’ is where the body-mind is not.

• • Who testifies that you slept well last night? Who provides the testimony?

There was no body, no mind, no intellect, and no memory in the deep sleep state to make such a claim. Then who is it? It is the ONE who knows. You know. The one who knows was there in the absence of the body-mind. Then how can you be the body-mind?

This self-inquiry will lead to the point of clarity that you are not the body-mind.

• • Let the body-mind die if it may! The ‘I-sense’ that is always there and knows the non-existence of the body-mind in the deep sleep state will know the non-existence of the body-mind in the death state.
  • The daily deep sleep state is the replica of death. You have never died in the deep sleep state, then how can you die in the identical death state? YOU are deathless!
  • The death of the body-mind cannot be effaced even by rejection, just like deep sleep cannot be effaced, yet the ‘I-sense’ remains deathless!

Reject all untruths! Whatever you have assumed [maanyata] is untrue. Get rid of all Dvaitam conditioning, shun all Dvaitam beliefs, throw away all Dvaitam concepts, stand on your spine of ‘direct experience’ ONLY and see the truth – YOU ARE DEATHLESS and your family members are simply projections in you-the-awareness. Reject every false belief of ownership of the waking world, dear. Just like you disown the tiger in the dream state, similarly, disown the world in the waking state. Disown it, and the truth will reveal itself as it is hiding behind the false ownership.

Bin chale, path naa mile! Without walking, you cannot find the path!

#AdvaitaVedanta #Non-duality #MandukyaUpanishad