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A Sadhu's Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi 3 in my waking state. When the morning broke I had no remembrance of the night's experience. But these fits did not render me weaker or less fit for life, and were hardly to be considered a disease. So on that day, as I sat alone, there was nothing wrong with my health. But a sudden and unmistakable fear of death seized me. I felt I was going to die. Why I should have so felt cannot be explained by anything felt in the body. Nor could I explain it to myself then. I did not however trouble myself to discover if the fear was well grounded. I felt ‘I am going to die,' and at once set about thinking out what I should do. I did not care to consult doctors or elders or even friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there.
“The shock of death made me at once introspective, or ‘introverted'. I said to myself mentally, i.e., without uttering the words, Now, death has come. What does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.'I at once dramatised the scene of death. I extended my limbs and held them rigid as though rigor-mortis had set in. I imitated a corpse to lend an air of reality to my further investigation. I held my breath and kept my mouth closed, pressing my lips tightly together so that no sound might escape. Let not the word 'I' or any other word be uttered! ‘Well then,' said I to myself, this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am “I” dead? Is this body “I”? This body is silent and inert. But I feel the full force of my personality and even the sound “I” within myself, apart from the body. So “I” am a spirit, a thing transcending
