The fear of death, or rather the death experience was the forerunner of Self-realization in the case of Bhagavan Sri Ramana. This is of great significance.
He had made no preparatory effort. He had not even heard of terms like 'Brahman', 'Self and the like. How he faced the death experience without getting scared and how he realized the Truth in a flash can be properly described only in the words of the Maharshi.
Maharshi says: I just felt I am going to die' and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor, or my elders or friends; I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, there and then.
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: 'Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? The body dies.'
And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched and stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word I nor any other word could be uttered. 'Well then,' I said 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 this body am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the I within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.' All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process.
‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that ‘I’ . From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.