The Role of Spirituality in Overcoming Grief and Loss

When does anyone experience grief and loss? It may be the grief of losing someone to death or it also can be the grief of loss of possessions and wealth. Grief is, more often than not, associated with the feeling of loss. Can Spirituality help someone overcome the pain of grief and loss? The answer is, yes, it can!

Why do we feel a sense of grief and loss? We, human beings, identify ourselves with the body that we have, with the mind and also our ego. Our ego makes us say, ‘I, me and mine.’ It is our ego that also makes us believe that we possess material things. ‘This is my house. This is my car. This is my son or my daughter.’ These feelings are a product of the ego. Therefore, our ego is also the main cause that we are the prisoners of people and possessions in our life.

How can Spirituality help someone overcome the feeling of grief and loss? Grief is a form of suffering. It is a pain of the human mind when the mind makes one believe that they have lost something or someone. Spirituality is the study, deep understanding and Realisation of the self. Spirituality teaches us that we are not this body-mind-ego complex that we identify with. We are the Soul, the Spark Of Unique Life, that is a part of the Supreme Immortal Power, SIP, that we all call God. In Spirituality, one’s aim is to realise that we all, humans, birds, animals, bees, trees, mountains, rivers, sky, everything is a manifestation of the Divine. The Supreme Immortal Power is like an ocean and we humans, who take birth are like a wave that emerges from the ocean and at death, merges back into the Supreme, the Divine. The Soul, the spark, comes into existence first in the single fertilised cell – the zygote - and only then, the body is formed. So, in essence, we are born into this world with nothing and we take nothing from this world when we die. Spirituality helps us realise this truth of life and death.

How is realising the truth about life and death helpful in overcoming grief? Spirituality helps us realise that this ego is a false sense of identity. We are, ourselves a manifestation of the Divine and so is everything and everyone in our lives. Hence, we do not possess anyone or anything. We come with nothing and at death, we can take nothing from this earth. We leave everything – all our possessions, wealth, relationships and even our body that we identify with, we leave on earth. It is the Soul that arrives on the earth as a life force and it is the Soul that leaves the earth too. The Realisation of these profound Truths also help us realise that when we possess nothing, we have lost nothing. Talking of wealth, it was something that was earned during a period of time and it keeps changing hands. One cannot possess wealth and material possessions forever. Hence, Spirituality helps in overcoming the feeling of possession that is the root cause of the feeling of grief at loss of the possession.

The other important form of grief and loss is the feeling of bereavement at the death of someone. Spirituality teaches that death is not the end but just a bend in the road of life. One who dies is just the body and the Soul, the life power in the body transcends and merges with the Divine. We, human beings get attached to people and feel bereavement when they pass away. But growing spiritually, one will realise that we should celebrate death as it is the freedom from the triple suffering that every human inevitably faces from the moment he is born – pain of the body, misery of the mind and agony of the ego. One will also understand that if there are any pending Karma for the dead person to redeem, he/she will surely, take a rebirth on this earth to pay off their Karmic debts. The ultimate purpose of a human life is to attain Moksha, Nirvana or the freedom from the cycle of rebirths and attain the Divine. So, instead of grieving for the dead, a spiritually evolved person would be happy that the person who died is free from this earth and the suffering attached to it and he would also pray that the person attains Moksha or Salvation and unites with the Divine.

Concluding the discussion, grief and loss are inevitable suffering in life. Human birth experiences the triple suffering of the body, mind and ego. Spirituality may not lessen the grief and sorrows of life but it definitely helps one understand and realise the root cause of all suffering and in the process, accept the circumstances, do one’s best that one can and have faith and belief in the Divine, the Supreme Immortal Power. Thus, Spirituality can immensely help a person, overcome the pain and suffering caused by grief and loss.