"It is not only your question, everybody is afraid of enlightenment. And the reason is clear why one is afraid: the fear is of losing yourself. For the same reason people are afraid of love; for the same reason people are afraid of trust; for the same reason they remain enclosed in all kinds of fears, miseries, anxieties and anguish, because at least these feel familiar. And one thing is certain, they don't ask you to be lost. The more painful your life is, the more you are.

"Perhaps deep down you desire pain, you desire misery, you desire anguish, because that keeps you clearly defined. You are afraid of the same things for which you also have a longing. On the one hand, there is a longing to go beyond all fears, beyond all anxieties, beyond all suffering. But the problem becomes complex, because being beyond suffering you are also beyond yourself – you are the suffering. You are the prison, that's why you are afraid to get out of it. On the contrary, you try to console yourself in every way, that 'This is not a prison, this is my home.'

"So you are living in a dilemma: you want to go into the open sky and open your wings and fly across the sun. But on the other hand, you are afraid you may never be able to find the way back to your cozy, familiar space. Although it is painful you have become accustomed to it; although there is suffering it is like an old friend. The beyond invites you, calls you to take courage. But it also creates a trembling within you, because going out of the cozy circle of your misery and your hell, you know for certain – you may not be very conscious of it – that your so-called personality will melt away into the vast…just like any ice block.

"The fear is, is there something beyond your personality? You are not aware of it, you have never come across it – you have never met yourself. You know only the superficial that has been told to you. You don't know on your own authority your essential, your inner."