I am living in dread of the terrible event that is inevitably going to befall the false self. I live in absolute dread of that terrible event – my life is a horror because of it and I’m not exaggerating when I say that. I’m not exaggerating at all. That’s what it’s like when the Great Fear really takes hold of you, when it gets you right in the entrails and won’t let go! That’s how you know. But how can anyone hope to give an authentic account of this most terrifying of all possible experiences?

‘Oh no,’ I cry out, ‘the dreaded long-awaited event is about to befall the poor unfortunate false self, and what can anyone do about that? Nothing is the answer to that particular question. Nothing at all. No one can do anything to help the poor false self with regard to this predicament, no one in the whole wide world! Not even God Himself can help the false self here. Thinking along these lines, my two knees started to knock together; They were knocking so loudly that strangers in the street were stopping to stare at me. That’s how bad it was. Very bad, very bad indeed. Just about as bad as it gets.

I was not in a good situation but this still didn’t mean that I couldn’t hatch a plan because I could. I could and I would. I could and I did. By Jingo I did. I hatched a plan to save myself, which wasn’t easy given the tremendous pressure I was under. Most people would probably have succumbed to the terror, but not me.

I came up with a notion, I came up with a plan. I came up with a unique, one-of-a-kind conception – I would change my game-plan and instead of being pressurised and freaked and stressed out the whole time I would take it easy, I would kick back and relax. I would do everything in a super-leisurely way and not let fear get the better of me. I will take my time to do everything and I wouldn’t allow myself to be rushed. The new rule was that everything had to be done as leisurely a way as possible! I conceived this plan in the midst of complete and utter panic attack, you understand – possibly the worst panic attack I have ever had. Pure intense terror, essentially. My plan was born in terror, but it bore fruit all the same.  

We all live in dread of the terrible event that is inevitably going to befall the hapless false self. We are all alike in that respect. We’re all in the same basket there. That’s the axe that hangs over our heads, the axe that we try our level best to ignore, needless to say. We make polite conversation, we discuss comparative anthropology, the news, and that sort of thing. That’s how the game is played, after all! That’s how things are done. I was sticking to my plan, in any event. Once you make a plan like this then it is quite impossible to break out from it, as I know you understand. You’ve been there too, just as I have. Once you make a plan of this nature then you’re pretty much stuck with it…