Late Night Chat with Jeff: Grief, Heartache and Loss, July 21, 2024, live on Baba Zoom

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered!

Topic: Grief and Loss

Dear folks of Baba,

So many in this country devoted to Baba are from the Baby Boomer generation, born in the 1940s and 50s, and so most have suffered the poignant loss of their parents. And now many of their contemporaries are passing on. The younger generations as well as the Baby Boomers have also lost near and dear ones through divorce, the breakup of close friendships, and have even been left heartbroken in romance and by family. Also, there are close friends who have had to move away and are never seen again. These are heart-rending events even if they are expected, and how we deal with them is critical to our well-being and inner life. There are few ways to speed up the short-term process of grief; there is usually an inevitable minimum length of time to make the inner adjustment. What can be critical spiritually is how we deal with the long-term effects so that there is not a sense of irredeemable loss. What Baba has said about death is immensely helpful, and fortunately, He often awakens in us the knowing that our near and dear ones are not forever gone, but they are right here and have not gone anywhere. They are still present, but they are invisible. In the late 1930s, when one of Baba’s circle of close followers in England passed on at an early age, He said of her, "She is still here; where else can she go? Only you do not see her, for being without her coat and hat on, you do not recognize her."

It is unacceptable to our soul that someone is gone forever, that they are no longer here. And to believe this is to plunge ourselves into the deepest grief. The heart cannot accept this! There is a hospice saying, “Grief is love that has no place to go.” The object of our love is no longer physically here, and so for most people their love is painfully backed up, and that is experienced as grief. But if we think that our close ones are still here, although invisible as Baba says, there is a place our love can flow to. Our relationship can continue, although in a different form than when our dear one was physically here. This is a most loving consolation that Baba has built into our inner experience. And the love we send to the departed ones or those who may have rejected us or who have moved away is received by them and responded to in kind. The relationship needn’t stop with death at all or when they are physically distant! And Baba gives us the assurance that we will meet again and continue the sharing of love. Mehera, who suffered the greatest loss when Baba dropped His body, eventually found Him with her most intimately after she passed through her initial period of unimaginable grief.

How have you dealt with the death of a close one? What have you done when someone has rejected your love or disowned you? How have you involved Baba in this painful adjustment and how do you feel now? Has the grief and loss and heartbreak brought you to a deeper place within and to a more mature love? And closer to Baba?

I couldn’t resist quoting this Rumi poem on death:

On the day I die,

when I’m being carried toward the grave,

do not weep.

Don’t say, He’s gone, he’s gone.

Death has nothing to do with going away.

The sun and moon set,

but will they not come up in brightness

tomorrow?

The grave is merely a veil

over reunion in paradise.

The human seed goes into the ground

like a bucket into the well

where Joseph’s spirit dwells.

It grows and comes up

full of some unimagined beauty.

When your mouth closes on this side,

it opens on that side

with a shout of triumph that echoes

in the placeless air!

With help from friends, in His love, Jeff

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