It is very common during the process of spiritual awakening that a sense of fear arises from the separate self. When we open to our true nature, the one consciousness, the mind can experience a fear of its own death. This is a crucial moment in spiritual practice, and what is required in that moment is to completely allow and surrender fully to the experience of fear. It is in this surrender that the sense of separation dissolves and falls away like a curtain, revealing the nature of the true self, pure awareness. With this realization comes the knowing that I am eternal, infinite consciousness, and I am also a temporary expression of form, and there is no separation between the two. That part which experiences itself as a separate form can use prayer as a vehicle to open the heart and deepen in unconditional love.