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Transcending the Fear of the Unlimited Spiritual Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  A relatively frequent occurrence for the spiritual aspirant is to
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  reach the boundary wall of consciousness and get a glimpse
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  or experience of the spiritual consciousness without limits.
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  This experience, when it comes, may raise up tremendous fear in
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  the individual and he reacts almost automatically and
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  spontaneously, drawing himself away from that unlimited field
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  and back into his own comfortable ego self.
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  The reaction is one of the ego consciousness that fears its
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  dissolution. The individual is not yet ready
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  to accept and receive the limitless spiritual
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  consciousness and rebounds into the small limited human
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  existence. A somewhat similar thing occurs
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  when an individual has in a conscious state what is called
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  an out of body experience. Note as opposed to those that
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  may be rated related to a near death experience, which may be
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  involuntary and not under any kind of active conscious
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  awareness or control. The individual reports seeing a
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  silver thread or line from his awareness back to the physical
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  body. As he moves farther away, he can
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  experience vast realms of space, visit other places, see other
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  things, all without known limits.
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  But the moment he worries about what will happen if this thread
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  snaps, or how far can I go without the thread snapping, he
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  is immediately plunged back into the limited human body and the
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  experience ends. The poet Khalil Gibran expressed
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  this feeling in his poem Fear Quote.
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  It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with
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  fear. She looks back at the path she
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  has travelled from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding
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  Rd. crossing forests and villages, and in front of her
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  she sees an ocean so vast that to enter there seems nothing
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  more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way.
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  The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back.
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  To go back is impossible in existence.
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  The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean, because
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  only then will fear disappear, because that's where the river
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  will know. It's not about disappearing into
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  the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.
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  End Quote. As long as the individual
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  remains within the confines of the human ego personality and
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  the individual mind, life, body complex, he is limited in the
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  consciousness he identifies with.
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  It is only when he can go beyond the boundary, overcome the fear
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  of dissolution that is the offspring of the ego
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  consciousness, that he can be born into the spirit and live in
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  that vast, untrammeled consciousness.
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  The mother notes quote. In fact, the vast majority of
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  men are like prisoners with all the doors and windows closed, so
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  they suffocate, which is quite natural, but they have with them
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  the key that opens the doors and windows, and they do not use it.
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  Certainly there is a time when they don't know they have the
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  key, but long after they have come to know of it, long after
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  they have been told about it, they hesitate to use it and
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  doubt whether it has the power to open the doors and windows,
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  or even that it is a good thing to open them.
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  And even when they feel that after all it might be good,
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  there remains some fear. What will happen when these
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  doors and windows are opened and they are afraid.
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  They are afraid of being lost in that light and freedom.
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  They want to remain what they call themselves.
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  They like their falsehood and their bondage.
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  Something in them likes it and goes on clinging to it.
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  They still have the impression that without their limits they
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  would no longer exist. That is why the journey is so
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  long. That is why it is difficult.
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  For if, when truly consented, to cease to exist, everything would
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  become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyful.
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  But perhaps not in the way men understand joy and ease.
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  In truth, there are very few people who do not enjoy
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  fighting. There are very few who could
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  accept the absence of night. Few can conceive of light except
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  as the opposite of darkness. Without shadows there would be
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  no picture. Without struggle there would be
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  no victory. Without suffering there would be
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  no joy. That is what they think.
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  And so long as one thinks in this way, one is not yet born
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  into the spirit. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother powers within.
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  Chapter 22. Spirit, pages 165 to 166.