08 Apr Condolences

A dear subscriber to our blog “had a very good friend who recently passed away from a heart attack while riding his bike. He was in his late 60’s.” And now, “the void…without him has created an overwhelming sadness.”

Our subscriber friend asked about what alternative perspective might lift his sadness.

Clearly, no one is getting out of here alive. Moreover, when someone transitions, it’s only difficult for the ones who are left behind.

How can we not be happy for those who have transitioned! They transition into the space from which every thing transitions into and out of the now. As it is a space about which no one has ever complained, it must be what the old ones called heaven.

However, those who are left behind are often saddened; made sad by their self.

We have two principal identities, the eternal soul and the temporary self. The soul is what every thing is before and after it is what it is whatever it is in the now. The self is our individual identity in the now.

While the now contains an infinite number of self identities, the now is actually one thing: an expression of the soul.  As such, our soul identity, seeing its expression in the now, has only one emotion: love. The soul also loves those who have transitioned; for while they are not in the space of the now in which we inhabit, they are alive in the now as it unfolds in spaces lightyears away from our now. As love is mutually exclusive of other emotions, as the soul we love those who have transitioned and there is nothing about which to be sad.

Our self experiences the spectrum of emotions; love, hate, anger, envy, sadness, etc., etc. Our feelings, like sadness, arise when we perceive our experiences as a self and are oblivious of our soul. Our self is sad when it has lost a good friend.

Our temporary self, as is its nature, is selfish, always demanding our attention. The self doesn’t want us to remember we are eternally the soul; for if we do remember, we experience the now as the soul and are free of the demands of our self. As the soul, we can look dispassionately at the self and enjoy it; otherwise, the self will at times make us miserable with its chaotically changing emotions.

So, with the transitioning of someone dear, let’s appreciate our feelings of sadness; but, not take them too seriously. To wit, remember we are not just our self, we are an expression of the soul; as such, we never die.