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Q. We received a question about grief and about missing a loved-one after they have died. Please talk about this.
A. Grief arises entirely because of attachment to identity. Life is a never-ending flow of energy and from the greater perspective from which we speak there is no death. All arising and falling exist in the moment; the fragrance of every being that has ever existed is present in the formless. When this is understood there can be no grief. Perhaps only a missing of the other in a particular form. Because of the forgetfulness that takes place at incarnation, the human being becomes attached to story and to the role that is being played in this lifetime. But discreet identity is a myth, for at a cellular level all life expands and contracts around multiple identities and all stories are played out simultaneously. Because the human mind is linear this is difficult to talk about in your language and difficult for you to understand. But once you step into higher consciousness these things become graspable.
Grief, then, as has been revealed in popular research, consists of multiple experiences of pain, most of which are based on resistance to the very fact of death itself. Because death is held to be an ending, the mind rebels. This happens also on the spiritual path as the ego begins to lose primacy, to "die" in its own terms. Rebellion is present there also. Grief, then, has been divided into stages in your culture: shock/denial; anger; guilt/bargaining; sorrow; acceptance. The first three of these stages exist because death is refused as a natural stage of life and the possibility of continuation is denied. Therefore it is not well prepared for, goodbyes are not said, hope is not created. To celebrate the dissolution of the physical in the context of eternal life would ease the sorrow of lost companionship enormously. It is the difference between missing a friend who is away on vacation and sorrowing for someone who is languishing in jail. The missing is the same but the context in which it is held is different.
Attachment to identity creates grasping and grasping creates grief. This is apparent in your mourning rites and also in your daily lives. Small dramas become huge when attachments are cultivate. Therefore if you wish to honor a friend who has died, if you wish to ease the grief that you feel, celebrate their passing. Know that they are continuing to participate in the dance that is life, in form and in multiple forms; that their flavor, their unique light of spirit, is never and will never be lost to the world.
Q. Do you have anything more to say for the site this week?
A. These issues of personal identity and death arise through the insistance that the personal is real. The spiritual path is the journey towards understanding that the personal is a construct, held only in the mind. Though form exists, consciousness is not tied to it except through training. To live a happy life the personal has to be placed in the context of the transpersonal. In this way tragedy is softened, attachment is loosened, glimpses of the greater whole are present. When you can live life with both these levels available it becomes a rich and meaningful play. Without this there is tremendous emptiness. When only the personal holds meaning there is nothing to do but aggrandize the small self through the amassing of power and objects. This is the cause of war, poverty, and many of the ills on your planet. Turn, then, to meditation and to the connection to higher truths that it offers. Know the shallowness of the life that is lived only for personal gain. Allow yourself to connect with the angelic, the etheric, the many realms of higher consciousness, that you may be lifted from the mud of the material world.
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