Is Enlightenment the same as being dead? I'm feeling an intense fear of death

[lmfao]

Disclaimer: I am no way shape or form advocating physical suicide. 

I know this might sound like a silly question and I feel as though the answer won't be known till I do work, but I'm asking it anyway. I feel like it's starting to hit me that this whole Enlightenment stuff is serious shit. Whenever I talk about Enlightenment there's a tendency for me to compartmentalise stuff and forget I'm talking about the nature of all existence and reality itself. 

I remember I was meditating yesterday and had just a few moments of clear perception. It freaks me the hell out because it was like I was never there. I'm just feeling scared now after that experience. It felt extremely beautiful to me yesterday but right now I'm just freaking out for some reason. My mind is just racing with the thought "I don't want to die" and I'm just having a existential crisis. I'm wishing I never did any of this meditation or consciousness work in the first place, because it's making me think that I can delude myself into thinking I'm alive but I've always been dead and have just been an empty void. I feel like I'm going insane. I'm just feeling a wave of negativity. 

I know that the way I'm phrasing it is silly and unuanced but I'm just curious about people who are completely enlightened (if such a thing is 100% possible). Are these people like talking corpses? All these words can come out their mouth and it looks like they're alive, but they're really dead? 

Edited November 25, 2018 by lmfao

[Leo Gura]

Imagine life just as it is but you were hit in the head with a baseball bat such that you can no longer form the thought "me". You are gone, but life goes on.

You are an idea. This idea will stop arising.

But that is only the realization of no-self. There is still more to realize. Like what God is. So it's not as bleak as the ego makes it seem.

Don't buy into the ego's negative opinions about enlightenment. They are all delusion.

This work requires a leap of faith in the end. You cannot know what will be discovered after ego-death. It is not imaginable.

[lmfao]

@Leo Gura thank you for advice, I just hope what I'm feeling will pass. I'm just gonna try my best to remain mindful. I can tell my mind is going crazy a strong, irrational thought story. Seems like the "dark side of meditation" has just ambushed me. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by lmfao

[non_nothing]

1 hour ago, lmfao said:

mind is just racing with the thought "I don't want to die" and I'm just having a existential crisis. I

Your process reminds me of mine. It's tough process but It goes away. Keep meditations going.

 

1 hour ago, lmfao said:

Are these people like talking corpses?

Lol. They can go back and actually 100% enlightenment is very rare. You get the glimpses of ego here and there and even get carried by it for a while. Maybe days who knows. It is your freaked mind puts it in that way actually. Corpses can't talk right? So they're very much alive talking persons. But I admit, I get what you mean and no, they're not. But they have very, very clear vision of things. They can see and understand people very differently than most. They perceive life as it is, not with any filters on it.

[AlwaysBeNice]

Keep seeing that thoughts are all unreal, and that Self cannot be touched or grasped.

And you die and are reborn every moment, and certainly also when you go to sleep at night.

-

In my limited experience, glimpses of no self are like death, but also totally the opposite of death, becoming much more greater and mystical and deeper, but silent.. yet absolutely mindblowing, even though the mind is also gone.

And it keeps going deeper, as mystical, more mystical, totally different, more conscious, less conscious, more universal, less universal, more personal, more/less emotional. etc.. (in glimpses I have (at night/sleep only), totally different every time!). edit: emotional isn't the right word, there are feelings, but no real emotions like sadness or anger

(imo, the 'there is no you' is strangely misleading, you will be there, just without mental talk.

I feel more myself, even during those glimpses, than ever before, but maybe I am not that far, and I am still pretty identified in the waking state)

-so don't be afraid, practice being still, just be awake, don't let yourself be dragged in thoughts/addictions too much, why be afraid of yourself??

Edited November 25, 2018 by AlwaysBeNice

[Joseph Maynor]

Sort of.  The Ego dies but doesn't disappear.  The body dies but doesn't disappear.  Other People die but don't disappear.  So, what you're left with is the true Self plus the illusions of Ego, Body, and Other People.  Again, we have another paradox.  You both die and don't die with Enlightenment.  You gotta work both ends of that paradox.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Leo Gura]

18 minutes ago, lmfao said:

Seems like the "dark side of meditation" has just ambushed me. 

Yes it has. This is actually a positive sign. It means you're getting closer to Truth.

Keep the faith. And remember to be gentle and loving with yourself.

Watch my newest Ox video. It was made for people like you.

[Scholar]

Does that mean that animals are enlightened?

[lmfao]

@non_nothing

2 hours ago, non_nothing said:

But I admit, I get what you mean and no, they're not. But they have very, very clear vision of things. They can see and understand people very differently than most. They perceive life as it is, not with any filters on it.

Thank you for the answer. @AlwaysBeNice

 

2 hours ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

Keep seeing that thoughts are all unreal, and that Self cannot be touched or grasped.

And you die and are reborn every moment, and certainly also when you go to sleep at night.

.......... 

 

-so don't be afraid, practice being still, just be awake, don't let yourself be dragged in thoughts/addictions too much, why be afraid of yourself??

Good reminder 

@Joseph Maynor dies but doesn't dissappear? Sounds interesting. 

@Leo Gura I just watched your video, it was pretty good. 

@Scholar

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

Does that mean that animals are enlightened?

Beats me. 

[Joseph Maynor]

36 minutes ago, lmfao said:

@non_nothing

Thank you for the answer. @AlwaysBeNice

 

Good reminder 

@Joseph Maynor dies but doesn't dissappear? Sounds interesting. 

@Leo Gura I just watched your video, it was pretty good. 

@Scholar

Beats me. 

Yep.  That's what makes it an illusion.

[pluto]

No, Enlightenment is the realization that death is actually illusory.

[cetus]

@lmfao  You've never been born. Yes there is the body/mind. It is available to you so by all means use it. But that is not what you are.

[WelcometoReality]

@lmfao That usually what happens after the initial seeing.

You can read more about it here.