Even a little of this dharma delivers from great fear

Even a little of this dharma delivers from great fear

From the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter II, Verse 40

When I was a small boy I used to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with the stark realization that I was not going to live forever, that someday I would die and stop existing. It terrified me and I tried to understand, in this moment of clarity amid the darkness, what it meant to die.

Several months after I began the practice of daily meditation I began to notice that changes were occurring in my life. I had stopped smoking, I had stopped biting my fingernails, and the nervous movements of my legs had ceased. But it was only when I realized that the late night panic experiences had also gone away. The dharma, the practice of meditation had delivered me from the great fear of death. Now I understand the thinness of the veil separating this life from the next.