Loss brings about great suffering. But what is the basis of this suffering? What’s behind this? Is there a way to disarm this source of pain or to minimize it? Here we’ll see how to deal with loss.
First, a meditation: “if you’ve lost something, it’s because it wasn’t really yours”.
What you lost was not the person or object. That was never “yours”. You’re not the ultimate owner of anyone or anything. You lost the illusion that it was yours.
And that’s what’s making you hurt. The brutal reencounter with the reality that nothing is yours deeply disturbs those who base their lives on the illusion that happiness comes claiming ownership of things and people.
Not even your body is yours. Did you make your body? I didn’t make mine. A rock, a fiber of cotton, water, earth… none of this is yours. You can’t make any of this. For those who have activated their devotion, the concept is easy enough to understand: everything belongs to God.
This concept is central to yoga and essential for living in peace: nothing belongs to you. You are just you. Consciousness. The soul.
That’s why things enter and leave your life beyond your control. Because they are not yours. When we don’t understand this, inevitably we experience the harsh lesson of loss.
And what about losing loved ones? It’s beyond awful. So much pain. But that person was never “yours”. The person was never really “your” brother or “your mother”. You never owned that person. The person was an eternal soul who came and played that part in your life, and now he or she is gone. Every relationship here has a beginning and an end. I was born, I will die. You were born, you will die. The pain of separation can be mitigated with a dose of reality: every person has always existed and will always exist. Only your time with that person, under those conditions, has ended. You can learn more about this topic of life after death in this video.
You’re a tourist. Only passing through. You arrived with nothing and no one and you’ll leave with nothing and no one. Everything you have is on loan, to be used while you’re here. The only thing that’s absolutely certain in life is that you won’t leave with anything or anyone.
The feeling of loss is a call for your awakening. We have to wake up to our internal reality. Even if you don’t believe in soul or God, you still cannot deny that you’re conscious and your experience of life in internal and metaphysical.
That’s why any step you take in this direction will bring you enormous positive gain and wellbeing. Changing extrinsic objectives for intrinsic objectives, prioritizing peace, emotional health, love… all of this will bring about huge gains and save you from the suffering that naturally arises from focusing on external things like money, things, social status, etc.
In the book, The 3T Path (https://3tentesting108.com/books/) you can see in detail how to develop the mental power and vision to conquer this paradigm shift and, thus, how to deal with loss.
Watch my video on this topic here.
Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “a richly rewarding experience” – Chaitanya Charan Das