The End of Form

Growth and Relationships

I boarded a plane for my home state of Connecticut after receiving a call from my dad on Thursday morning informing me that my grandmother had passed. My relationship with this side of the family has been difficult at its worst and awkward at its best so I was unsure how to proceed. Coming back to Connecticut in the past has been like bumping into a childhood tormentor at a family reunion…and more often then not served as a reminder that I still had a lot of old, forgotten about hurts and unresolved issues to deal with.

There is an old saying that suggests if you want to know how much you’ve really grown you should go visit your parents. I have found this to be very true and the real measure of my personal growth came when I checked in with my higher self to see if I should go to her funeral. Somehow the difficult relationship I have always had with my father had dissolved over the past months and the challenge that it once represented to me diminished. My higher self responded with a resounding yes that I have learned not to question and I phoned my dad to tell him I would come. He seemed relieved and grateful; a side of him I have not seen much of and so with the peace and confidence of those who are internally informed, I packed my bag and readied myself for the trip.

Are You Leaving or Getting Home?

I arrived at the Hartford airport on Sunday at 8pm EST. My Aunt Ginger and Uncle Mark who live in East Haddam picked me up and I spent the night at their house before heading to Westport in the early morning to meet my dad. We traveled to the funeral home together. My grandmother was in the front room as we entered looking peaceful in her open casket…ready and waiting for those who would pay their last respects.

I walked up to the casket, knelt down and meditated on the following passages:

From the Kena Upanishad:

What cannot be thought with the mind, but that whereby the
mind can think: Know that alone to be Brahman, the Spirit; and not
what people here adore.

What cannot be seen with the eye, but that whereby the eye can
see; Know that alone to be Brahman, the Spirit; and not what people
here adore.

What cannot be heard with the ear, but that whereby the ear
can hear; Know that alone to be Brahman, the Spirit, and not what
people here adore.

Tao Teh Ching:

What is well planted cannot be pulled up.
What is closely embraced cannot slip away.

And finally…

Grandma, I see the real you…the unseen, formlessness by which all is made possible.

Saying Goodbye

I returned to the seating area and watched the people present form a line. One by one, they knelt before the coffin and said their goodbyes. As they were leaving they passed the chairs in which we were sitting. Nearly everyone uttered a variation of the phrase I’m sorry for your loss.

I wondered at this as I felt no sense of loss at all, I was so connected to my spirit side, so deeply in the world of energy…that I felt full and I knew beyond any doubt the truth. Death to me is not a process of leaving as much as it is a process of returning to a more natural state…one that most of us could perceive if we only trained our eyes to do so. Our consciousness (the essence of who we are) does not follow our physical body…it is more closely connected to our subtle body of spirit.

The True Source of Grief

Those who are unaware of the subtle body of spirit within themselves will look at death as loss because they can’t feel the truth; they can’t connect with their own spirit, so when they see it apparently lacking in another…they feel grief. The profound sorrow they experience is generated by their own condition of separateness; they cry for the loss and emptiness they feel inside…they cry for the lost part of themselves that they wish to find. This part of themselves that they wish to find is what is real…and that which is real…stays.