These are all ‘ghosts’. If you are afraid, the ghosts will possess you. If there is inner fear of ‘what if they hang me?’; then one should say, ‘yes, that is correct’. The Soul can never be hung; nothing [worldly] can touch the Soul. All the doings are that of the pudgal (matter; non-Self). The noose for hanging is pudgal and the one doing hanging (the hangman), is also pudgal. The Soul has never been hung. This [fact] does not fit one’s vision and that is why he has fear. But once his vision becomes like the Gnani’s [the enlightened one], then it’s over! For that, one has to stay in touch with the Gnani [the enlightened one].
The ego dies and the ego lives, but people say that ‘I died’. That which takes birth and dies is the ego, and the Soul is in the same place (is always intact). Even Pudgal (the atoms that were charged; which are being discharged in the form of mind, body, speech) is in the same place. The issue is only of the ego in the middle.
Once the egoism has gone (stopped), all the worldly ‘matter’ of the body-complex [pudgal] are renounced! Where there is egoism, there is my-ness and where there is my-ness, there is a hidden egoism. When ‘Knowledge of the Self’ is attained, egoism and my-ness goes away. Only the dramatic (discharge) ‘egoism’ and ‘my-ness’ will remain.