Hello,
Welcome back.
My name is Pratika.
This video is called I fear I will die alone.
There is a fear that can arise in the mind.
It may appear quietly.
It may remain hidden for years.
Yet it lingers beneath the surface of daily life.
Beneath the search for relationships.
Beneath the desire to belong.
Beneath the longing to feel secure.
The fear is this,
I will die alone.
At first glance this appears to be a fear about death.
A fear about some future event.
Yet,
If we pause for a moment and look more closely,
We may discover something surprising.
The suffering is not being created by death.
Nor has it been created by a future that has not arrived.
It is being created by a collection of thoughts appearing now.
A thought accompanied by sensations in the body.
A thought believed and experienced as reality.
And because the mind feels vulnerable,
Uncertain or disconnected.
It projects an image of what may come.
I will die alone.
The thought appears,
The body responds.
Fear arises,
Sadness arises.
Anxiety arises.
And yet the thought itself is nothing more than a movement.
Appearing.
Within one's awareness.
As understanding deepens,
We may begin to see something important about thought itself.
The thought,
I will die alone.
May feel powerful.
It may feel convincing.
It may feel unquestionably true.
Yet,
When we look closely,
We discover that it is composed of words.
Words appearing within awareness.
Words have no independent authority.
And they have no independent power.
Their power,
Apparent power,
Comes from being believed.
And when a thought is believed,
The body responds as though the thought were reality.
This is not a mistake.
It is simply how the mind and body function.
Yet seeing this clearly creates space.
A space between ourselves and the story,
A space in which we no longer need to fight the thought nor do we need to follow it.
We can simply notice it.
Allow it.
And let it pass.
Through conditioning and repeated association,
We have come to believe many things about ourselves.
From an early age we are taught that we are separate individuals.
That we were born,
That we are moving through time,
And that one day we will die.
For many,
These assumptions are rarely questioned.
They simply become beliefs.
And when these beliefs combine with the human tendency to fear the unknown,
The thought,
I will die alone,
Can appear profoundly real.
The mind creates an image.
It imagines a future.
It imagines a separation.
It imagines loss.
And then it responds to its own creation.
Fear arises.
Sadness arises.
Anxiety arises.
Yet all of this is taking place within the mind's interpretation of experience.
The mind is believed.
The story is believed.
And because it is believed,
It appears real.
But perhaps what is needed is not now the belief.
Perhaps what is needed is a willingness to look more closely.
To question what has been assumed,
To question what has been inherited.
To question whether every thought that appears is telling the truth.
And in that questioning,
A deeper understanding may begin to emerge.
As we learn to remain present within these experiences,
Something often begins to soften.
Not because we have sold anything.
Not because we have found certainty.
But because we are no longer abandoning ourselves in the presence of fear.
The fear may still arise.
The thoughts may still appear.
The concerns may still visit from time to time.
Yet gradually we begin to recognize that there is a deeper presence that is unaffected by thoughts,
Fears and outcomes.
A quiet stillness that remains even when the body is busy with concerns.
A gentle,
Still presence that remains even when emotions come and go.
A simple awareness that is here before every thought,
During every thought,
And after every thought,
Remaining unaffected by any thought.
A timeless and spacious awareness that is prior to all ideas of time and space.
Prior to every story of a past or future.
Prior to any concept of birth or death.
Prior even to the conditioning through which we have come to define ourselves.
This awareness does not need to become anything.
It does not arrive.
It does not depart.
It is not moving from birth towards death.
Nor is it bound by the stories the mind has inherited.
And come to believe.
As understanding deepens,
We may begin to recognize that what we truly are is not a separate self,
Appearing briefly between two points in time.
Rather,
We are this unborn reality itself.
This timeless awareness.
Within which all experiences arise and pass.
Thoughts arise within it.
Feelings arise within it.
The sense of being a separate person arises within it.
Yet the awareness itself remains untouched,
Unchanged,
Silent and present.
And as this is seen more clearly,
We may begin to recognize that as the inseparate self of timeless awareness,
There can be no state of true loneliness.
Nor can there be true separation.
For separation.
Requires two.
And in direct experience all appears within the same indivisible awareness.
The many forms of life may appear different.
The expressions may appear unique.
Yet all are arising within and as the same seamless wholeness.
Like waves upon the ocean,
Each expression appears distinct,
Yet none are separate from the water from which they arise.
At the same time,
We may begin to recognise something even more profound.
Beneath the changing thoughts,
Emotions and experiences.
There is a vast still presence.
Solid.
Unmoving.
Always here.
Thoughts arise within it,
Feelings arise within it.
The entire experience of life arises within it.
And yet this presence itself remains untouched.
From this perspective,
Life is no longer seen as a series of arrivals or departures.
A series of gains or losses,
A series of beginnings or endings.
Life is revealed as a seamless movement within awareness itself.
The forms may change,
The experiences may change,
And the circumstances may change.
Yet the presence in which they arise remains unchanged.
And perhaps in this recognition the fear of dying alone begins to lose its grip.
Not because we have convinced ourselves that everything will be okay.
Not because we have found a guarantee.
Because we have discovered something deeper than the fear.
A peace that exists beneath the noise of the mind.
A stillness that was never absent.
A presence that has never been separate from life itself.
And perhaps this is the deepest invitation.
Not to overcome the fear of dying alone.
But to discover that which we truly are has never been separate from life itself.
Never isolated,
Never divided.
There is only this one vast still presence.
And within this awareness,
Life flows seamlessly,
Without arrivals or departures,
Without separation,
Without isolation.
Simply appearing,
Unfolding and dissolving.
Within the wholeness that is already here.
Blessings to you.
