My mom was quite healthy but passed away suddenly with heart attack. I see so many other people who are not healthy living longer. This makes me think may be we have not taken care of her and if she would have gotten medical attention sooner she would have survived. I can not calm my mind. I am very sad and feel guilty.
—In God's service, USA
Dear friend,
I am so sorry for your loss. In one way I could simply say, “there are no words.” In no way would I want to try and talk you out of your grief. Even Yogananda shed tears when a few of his closest disciples passed. He also felt great sadness when one of his monks or nuns left the path. This universe works in ways that are simply impossible for us to understand. It is all beyond mind or intellect, and when a loss as great as this occurs, particularly when it happens so quickly and unexpectedly, we just long to make sense of the situation. I understand completely.
And here is the truth … the only way to find any real comfort is to expand our consciousness and have an experience that is not solely of our human heart, but more on a soul level. No matter how much you loved or cared for your mother she had her own karma to live out … and she did just that for this lifetime. There can be no mistake about this. No one can come or go from this earth based only on another’s desire. We come with a soul mission and once we have grown as much spiritually as we can in this life, we leave.
Having said that, rest assured that the love you feel for your mother does support her soul to grow, to expand, to know more about true love. We all use human relationships to move closer to knowing about unconditional love i.e. ultimately our love for God. The fact that you love her so means a great deal to her spiritually. You ARE helping her, just in ways we know less about. She now, free of the limitations of the body, feels your love even more clearly.
Try and take some consolation from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, where Krishna is assuring Arjuna that death of the body is not what it seems. Please read the whole chapter and Swami Kriyananda’s commentary in The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 10.
In essence Krishna is saying to Arjuna, “You see the body die but I see the soul raise and expand. In death, nothing is ever lost. What you relinquish on the material plane you will rediscover a thousand times more wonderfully in God.”
Know for certain that your mother is both “free” in a way she could never be here, and very much with you.
Blessingss,
Tyagi Shanti
