The Fear of Not Existing

I'm sitting here thinking I really need to ask a question before I go, so thank you for choosing me. Yeah, I noticed again in the meditation, and so this is something that I've bumped up against repeatedly, and so it came up again. I thought, aha, so, because it's hard for me to go further because of it. So I can definitely have the sense of being and I can sit in the being and be aware of it, and it can feel wonderful and sublime, and the way that you speak about it, I can recognize it, but I'm aware of this, like, like a deep resistance in my separate self to surrender into it, and I think I can see that that's because, like, a very early message that I received was that I should not exist, like, do not be, and I think particularly when I hear words like emptiness, and I don't think you would use the word nothingness, but maybe I think in Buddhist teachings I've heard that. There's something about it that my separate self hears as a, you know, even though I know you're not saying this, it feels like it's been told you should not be, and so I can see a difference. I don't quite get the difference between, like, a lot of the conditioning and the contractions and the negative thoughts and beliefs and emotions that have I've acquired that I wish to let go of, but it actually feels that I've lived my life through that to such an extent that, to such a contraction, that I've never felt able to unfold myself in this lifetime, which causes me, like, deep, deep sadness, and I have a profound desire to do that, and I think it feels to me like surrendering into being is giving up, giving that up, when what I would really wish would be to truly express my being through this form in this lifetime, and so even though I think what you say doesn't contradict that, there's part of me that feels like there is a contradiction and that wants to pull away for fear of returning back to the idea that I should not be, and I should not exist, so I hope that makes sense. As you know, I never used the word nothing in relation to ourself, and I very rarely use the word emptiness in relation to ourself, although in some context, emptiness is an accurate word, but I feel that it has a slightly pejorative or negative connotation, which is misleading. I think the word nothing is completely misleading, but the reason why the word emptiness is used in the Buddhist tradition to signify ourself, or signify the nature of ourself, is that ourself is not anything that the object-knowing mind can know, so in relation to the mind that knows objects, our essential self or being is not itself an object. It is empty of objective qualities and is therefore referred to as empty. So from the point of view of the separate self, from the point of view of the finite mind, our essential self, our being, it has resistance to it. It doesn't want to surrender into it, because the finite mind feels, I'm letting go, I'm going to die, there's no room for me. King Lear has a negative attitude towards the possibility of John Smith, towards the possibility of being John Smith, because he knows that he has to come to an end as King Lear, in order for the knowledge I am John Smith to shine. So there is this huge resistance in King Lear of surrendering, because he thinks that if he surrenders he will die. No, he won't die, he'll just be relieved of his limitations, but he doesn't know that. So there is this great fear in King Lear of letting go of everything that defines him as King Lear. What he doesn't realise is that all the activities and relationships that he engages in, that he undertakes and engages in, are done, undertaken and engaged only for the purpose of divesting him of his limitations, in other words, revealing his being. So he loves and fears his being in equal measure. There's this dance that he goes on approaching his being, withdrawing from it. So that's where the fear for surrender comes from. And your feeling that you shouldn't exist is a misplaced feeling. It's not really the feeling that your essential being should not exist. It actually comes from the intuition that you are not limited to your personal experience. That your experience as a person, everything you associate with your personal experience, thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, perceptions, are somehow a veil over who you truly are. Your fear of letting go is not really a fear of letting go of your being. It is the fear of letting go of everything with which you have previously identified yourself. Because you feel you will die. It is a kind of death. That's why the Sufis speak of dying before you die. It is the death or the dissolution of everything we believe limits us and the subsequent revelation of our unlimited being. But the separate self itself does not want to take that journey. It does not want to. It cannot bring itself to an end. That's why in this approach we don't spend any time disciplining the separate self. We don't have any agenda with the separate self. We don't surrender the separate self in order to recognize our true being. We recognize our true being. And as a result, the limitations that we previously felt gradually, in most cases, fall away. So this, what you refer to, is the feeling that you shouldn't exist. It's not a feeling that comes from your being. It's a feeling that comes from... the primal feeling of the separate self. The core, the core of the sense of separation. So it's very good that you're in touch with that. You're not concerned with all the temporary thoughts and feelings. You're in touch with the core feeling that lives at the heart of the separate self.