I have returned from my sabbatical time and with gratitude have engaged in the life of the congregation. The Great Spirit allowed me to enter my return time in fullness so one month after my return I have presided at two memorials and have planned two for September. In the midst of this a friend passed away in a hospice and baby born into my extended family is in the midst of an ongoing medical crisis. Clearly my month has been full of potential grief and sorrow, both mine and that of those I serve.
This has led to reflect on the mystical response to loss and grief. What is grief for the mystic? I didn't think I would have much to say however once I started the thoughts flowed. It is encouraging when I can return to the Everyday Mystic way of thinking that wisdom is available.
The everyday mystic has a few responses to the sorrow of the another person:
1. Acceptance of the reality of the others loss.
2. Separation of ones own story and feeling from the situation.
3. Willingness to "hear" and "perceive" the fullness of the pain but not owning it as related to ones story.
To expand on this I wish to suggest that which is not a helpful or mystic response. There are those who are attracted to another person grief. They wish to share in the pain with someone in order to affirm their own response. Perhaps a story of loss triggers their own past loss. I have seen a woman newly widow having to console someone attending her husband's memorial. The supportive friend becomes the focus of the encounter. The friend cannot separate their own story from the story of the widow. Ecthart Tolle describes a function within our beings as "pain Body". The Pain body acts as separate entity within us and is fed by our pain. It is attracted to suffering because it is fed. The greater the pain and more attractive it looks. Another way of looking at this is sharing in the pain of another affirms our ownership of our own pain. It is as if our being rationalize that if in pain then my sorrow is normal. It allows us to remain half alive. The everyday mystic separates their own story from the story of the other.
A second unhelpful response is the rejection of the others reality. There is a number of unhelpful expressions and beliefs that come from this rejection. Some might offer the harmful response of "God called him home" or "Heaven needed another angel." The message is that you pain is not justified. Your loss is not real. You are not entitled to feel. It neglects the others ego response to a real loss while protecting one's own ego from having to feel. The mystic accepts the loss that the other is experiencing without equating it to their own historical losses.
Another issue I have witness is the ego's removal from the situation and story in order protect itself. The willingness to hear and perceive the fullness of the suffering in the world is the blessing of the everyday mystic. It is the denial of the suffering in the world and in our lives that encases our true being with the ego self. Seeing the others grief and suffering can free us from our own and allow us to true compassion. The nature of true compassion is to perceive true being of the other.
The everyday mystical understanding of loss is that what is lost need truly belonged to the mystic. It is the illusion of ownership that feeds grief. Much of grief is the lose of artificial control of one's environment. The ego grieves. We grieve the lose of a predictable journey and fight the need to live into an unknown future.
