Grief is a normal, instinctive response to loss. Grief can be debilitating, energy sapping, elicit a mix of emotions and at different times can leave you feeling confused, angry, sad, lonely and empty. Nothing really prepares you for facing grief. Importantly, although it may not be apparent when you are still dealing with the initial shock of the loss (there is always some experience of shock regardless of whether the loss is expected or not), the experience of grief presents an opportunity for reflection, healing and profound spiritual transformation. 

Throughout our busy complicated modern lives, there is rarely a period when we are not actually grieving because loss comes in many guises. We can lose a job; a home and neighbors if we move to another neighborhood; a connection with someone special in the aftermath of a relationship break-up; a culture if we migrate to another country; and we experience grief when a treasured family pet dies. But the most profound grief we will experience will likely be associated with the death of a loved one’s physical body.

Consciousness is the fabric of the universe — both its physical and spiritual aspects.  Consciousness has a vibrational quality. This effectively makes the universe a symphony of   sound because the inherent quality of sound is vibration. Hence mystics (at least those in the West) use the phrase Audible Life Stream when referring to it. The Audible Life Stream can have musical qualities and tuning into it in meditative silence can engender spiritual development by raising one’s level of conscious awareness. No doubt it is this musical quality of the universe that prompted Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, to coin the phrase the music of the spheres. 

There are multiple levels of consciousness. The multiple levels of consciousness can be conceived as a typical plant seed. Just as seeds have an outer coat (called the testa) and multiple layers of endosperm that enclose the embryo, consciousness has multiple layers or levels and at its core is the soul. The soul is not an ego-based form of consciousness and so it has no individual identity or personality. But encasing the soul are multiple levels of ego-based consciousness and the more subtle each becomes, the closer it approaches soul-consciousness. Therefore, your loved one’s outermost layer of ego-consciousness (i.e. that operates at the physical level) is distilled when their physical body dies but their identity remains intact at more subtle higher forms of consciousness. And we each function at all the multiple levels of consciousness simultaneously but we are usually only fully aware of one level (the physical level).

So put simply, other than at the physical level, you do not lose your loved one when their physical body dies, and your loved one has not lost you. Connections between the two of you remain at higher levels of consciousness. And those connections reflect a deeper spiritual love between the two of you. This is what makes grief essentially a spiritual wound.
When considered in this spiritual context, you may be able to see your grief as an opportunity for deepening your sense of the spiritual by doing things that heal and nourish the spirit. Self-reflection is one such activity that you can do when on your own and it can have therapeutic benefits because it can be spiritually nourishing. Importantly, self-reflection is different to the destructive, narcissistic behaviour of self-absorption. In contrast, self-reflection is an important form of learning in any context but in the context of grief it is an introspective journey of going within and learning about your inherent spiritual core. It is a contemplative, meditative experience — one characterised by peace and silence. And peace and silence are the wings of the soul. Engendering a peaceful, quiet mind creates the best environment for accessing soul-consciousness because it is in silence that the soul resides. And in stillness the soul emerges.

If through your experience of grief, you are able to make positive changes in your life enabling you to deepen your sense of the spiritual, that is transformative. Transformation does not require an epiphany or a mystical experience. Transformation can occur over time by simply making small but important changes in how you live because such changes could profoundly alter the trajectory of your life. And if you do transform your life, you will inevitably transform your spiritual journey when your own physical body dies, whenever that process of transition will occur.  

Alistair Conwell is the author of  Soul Comfort and The Audible Life Stream, which are available on-line and in bookstores around the world. 
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