Grief, Loss, and Never-Ending Immortality

Image by Remus Brailoiu

A reader of The Risen recently shared about a friend’s tragic loss of her unborn child, and of the devastation felt by family and friends:

“I am feeling very unprepared going into this stage of life where I'll be dealing with friends and family dying. Burying everyone before burying myself. Having deeper knowledge of the Risen World is, of course, tremendously helpful - in fact, it's everything: knowing that life continues beyond death makes all things bearable. And yet, I cannot help but feel a deep sense of sadness and longing to hold onto the beauty of this life, of this world. And I don't just mean our individual lives only, but the larger life of our world which is ephemeral. It is so hard to think that we as a world will only exist for an age, just a flash in the history of the life of the Sun. Things like Paris, New York, Van Gogh, or Mozart or Plato, there is no way to hold onto these things. How sad to know that it will all be consumed one of these days, if not by ourselves, then by the end of our Sun or the Universe.”

I (August) come from a very large family, one of those where most of my 15+ aunts and uncles all had large families, none less than 5, most 8 and one with 14 kids. I'm the eldest of 7, although 5 were lost to miscarriage and another died 10 days after birth. My childhood was like one big happy public swimming pool. As I near the end of my sixth decade on this planet, more of them are Risen than not at this point in time. Sometimes it feels like I'm living in a big, deserted warehouse, the empty swimming pool echoing with so many memories. I remember when the first one made her transition, many years ago, a favorite aunt, and how I felt a pronounced, unfamiliar shift in the world around me. I was already in my twenties, an adult, and yet it made me feel small and even helpless. It was like some kind of psychic or psychological earthquake, telling me something remarkable had happened, as if some great piece of machinery had been set in motion and was now running. I was so overwhelmed by it that I got roaring drunk for about a week. I now see that I hadn't realized I was also standing in a long line, each one waiting their turn to cross over, and that the line had just started moving with my aunt’s leaving. Every time another relative has transitioned, I have felt the line get shorter, and sense my place moving closer to the line of crossing.

Although there wasn't any fear when that first transition happened, there was confusion. Now, the feeling is one of excited anticipation, waiting for my turn. I try not to scare myself with it, in the way that I would dread getting on a roller coaster. I actually avoid roller coasters, but I won't avoid my transition, that's for certain! Because of my many years' intimacy with the Risen and with Tim, much of my interior, invisible existence has been with them, for their non-visibility has not, for the most part, interfered with our continued awareness of and communication with one another. Having spent so much time in the Risen lands, albeit still in extremely limited ways, I've also come to see that the planet we think we experience as incredibly beautiful and precious - which it is - is but a bare, thin veneer of a few particles of light, compared to the greater Risen reality. It is the same with art, music, dance, and the like. Most people cling to this reality the way they might cling to a special, beloved garment, trying to wear it beyond its usefulness and faded beauty, and so are unable to get a glimpse of the next and higher reality until just a few moments before their last few earthly breaths. My wish is that people would somehow strive to get such glimpses far sooner in their lives. Just a slight foretaste may be enough to dissolve the illusion of hope and replace it with the knowledge of a higher truth. For most people, this would be like jumping off a cliff without means of flight. But just like baby birds, we will fly, or learn to fly . . . and there is always assistance in the form of spirit guides and other non-terrestrial helpers to help us find our wings.

It is a blessing to also know that even that which we perceive as "great works of art" on earth actually have a continuing and vibrant co-existence in the higher-vibrating geographies. The same artists we revere here often are still creating there. Even our book, The Risen, exists in a certain form on Tim's level. Much more sophisticated, of course - and on several levels, in fact - for it was originated from a dimension wherein the Risen Assembly dwell, and who conceived the plan to manifest the book - transmitted several times down through various levels of consciousness, from higher to lower - until it finally emerged here, on our precious little blue marble of water and light.

We send prayers of light and love to our reader’s friend and family for her recovery, and always encourage anyone to do the same - pray - in support of the very real pain and sorrow brought by such sad experiences. And yet, learning to access the Risen lands may bring her into contact with the child, who is not lost, but alive, healthy, happy, and waiting! This can only bring true joy to her own experience, to mix with the sense of loss, and transmute it into something higher and finer, ever enhancing our never-ending immortality.

Meet The Risen

Dr. Melvin Morse was one of the first to read the manuscript, and immediately insisted on writing the Foreword for it. Here's a link to his wonderful piece, as well as the introductory material to The Risen.

Grief Transformed: Read the Chapter

A reader comments on our posting, "The Pastime of Reincarnation":

"Thank you for the information about this book, and especially thank you for the PDF of the chapter from your book on this subject. This is something that has caused me such untold suffering for the last 58 months, it is impossible to find words to describe it. It has utterly crippled me to the point that I have not even been able to function beyond getting up out of bed, and sometimes, not even able to accomplish that. When I lost my mother and dad because of cancer, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would find evidence that they somehow continued to live, yet would lose them AGAIN ... PERMANENTLY ... to reincarnation. I won't go any further, but just know that the words I have written here do not even come close to describing what I have had to endure because of this.
-Bob"

Dearest Bob – it is with heartfelt gladness that some of our words may have brought you a certain amount of reassurance and comfort. Although the grieving never stops; it can and ought to transform into a higher, finer kind of energy. Many people avoid asking and answering the questions about reincarnation that have haunted you, caught in a grey area bounded by unrelenting grief; yet the grey area, which is where all the true colors are, contains the way in and out; the way infinitely forward – the Truth of Reality. As you say, words just do not function well to describe your feelings.

Yet why don't we see any beautiful, heavenly colors, just dismal, dismal grey? It is with our spiritual senses – sight, hearing, and feeling – that we are able to experience the sights and sounds of the spiritual dimensions. If they are not active, then either our spiritual senses are inert, still in seed form and waiting to sprout and become functional, or they are shrouded and dampened by the veils of our deep, deep sadness, held firmly in place by loneliness, abandonment, panic, worry, and especially fear. In our book, The Risen, we go into great detail about how this predicament comes about, and how to begin to re-conceptualize our thinking so that we reclaim our kingdom – the domain of our mind, wherein we reside. We reclaim it from the ego-mind. Our book has suggestions about that as well.

This dampening of the spiritual senses disables us in several ways, which you have been experiencing for the past five years – physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Like an increasingly expanding shadow, the darkness of the growing grief keeps us imprisoned in a kind of “frozen hell of numbness,” as is says in our book.

You need not be crippled – this is a false state of being that will keep you from moving forward, as your parents are now doing themselves - moving forward. It is also an act of unkindness to yourself, and unkindness is never necessary, especially to one’s self. Rest assured that they will never move beyond you, for they can use time differently; hence they wait while they grow, and you grow while you wait. Waiting, which takes place in the present, and which is where you and where your parents are, is a true virtue. Waiting is not patience, something that is a form of control, and initiated by fear of loss of control. Waiting is the ability to rest in time, while simultaneously moving forward, still at rest. “Forward” and “rest” are meant here as states of existence, which is another way of saying “dimensions.” The Risen loosely refer to such seemingly paradoxical states as “geographies.”

We would like to offer you another chapter, “Grief Transformed,” from our book.

New Era of Ectoplasm? Full Materialization Reported

Since 2005 the experimental sitters circle for Seance Room Phenomena, Physical Mediumship and Spirit Contact near Frankfurt/Germany is active and involved in highly sophisticated experimentation and group healing activities.

I received an excited phone message last night from friend and colleague, Dr. S., that yesterday, Kai Mugge's FEG Spirit Team achieved a full manifestation of a Risen person in full red light during a special sitting in Spain. To read a very initial report, which also contains some ground-breaking scientific information about the very nature of ectoplasm (photos to come later) go here.

From The Archives: Krishnamurti Speaks: Negation & Dimensionality

This communication from K. is from the Archives of February, 2006.

We speak of dimensionality, of dimensions, which suggest quality and quantity — time and space — in mixed measures of unlimited ideas and approaches to one's life experience.

Negation is not positive thinking. Positive thinking works, by willful and consistent repetition, to overcome negative aspects, by turning off those aspects, as it were. So it can be seen that positive thinking can actually be quite violent in effect. Positive thinking needs negative thinking as a side-by-side companion, or as the background against which to stand and to be counted. Regard the system of binary code, which is represented by "1" and "0", which represent, respectively, on and off, yes and no, this and not this. They can exist only in direct but separate relationship to one another. Without one, the other is nothing. They may be perceived as opposites, yet are bound by something invisible and intrinsic that cannot be defined, although it would seem that they themselves are the defining factors. To ponder how this invisible something is used is to begin to touch the edge of the road that leads to other dimensions.

Negation is not of the binary. It is not of thought; rather, it is a non-thought or the space of absence of thought, which appears first as "no", and then becomes "yes". To negate something may appear, sound or look as if one is saying "no" to something else. Rather, as a more organized truth, which some may call "higher" or "greater" or "holier" and so on, negation neither recognizes nor remembers what it does not wish to manifest or occur. It is using the mind for something other than thought, which requires perception and memory. Without them, there is no thought, and without thought, there is no time. In this way, so-called miracles arise. It's not that what was unacceptable is now acceptable; rather, it is now not. What was damaged is healed — in the eternal nowness of what is, then, it has always been healed — and in fact, it was never otherwise than whole. This truth is what exists before, during and after the perception of events within the experience of psychological time. Neither the no nor yes exist, except if and as one chooses. This is the core of one's Self, and by extension, the expansion of one's view of the outer and inner dimensions, which become one when all else is negated. Then Reality becomes a dream, and the dream becomes Reality, and they co-exist.

What arises from this co-existence contains all the probabilities of dimensional experience; there is no time where this oneness is concerned; in fact, it is not concerned at all nor in any way. What arises is not static, or dead, but moving and living. When the mind uses thought to make decisions, which is judgment, and assigns the judgment with "1" or "0", then time and space, which is dimensionality, arises within the field of perception. When the attention is withdrawn from them, they collapse, and wholeness, which is peace, emerges from the dark waters of the mind.

Negation collapses the binary. Negation is conscious non-awareness of "1" or "0", which leads to conscious awareness of something else. This something else can be of one's choosing, which can be judged or not, although from any greater perspective in the cosmos the judgment is neither good nor bad, "1" nor "0". Negation is not turning off both the "1" and the "0", but turning the attention away from them. Negation is choosing this, and this only — there is no that. Once this choice is made, that does not exist, and one is left with this.