Visitor: My only son died a few days ago in a car accident, and I find it almost impossible toaccept his death with a philosophic fortitude. I know that I am not the first person to suffer suchbereavement. I also know that each one of us has to die some time. I have in my mind sought solacefrom all the usual ploys by which one consoles oneself and others in such predicaments. And yet, Icome back to the tragic fact that a cruel fate should deprive my son of everything in the prime of hislife. Why? Why? I keep on asking myself. Sir, I cannot get over my grief.
Maharaj: (After sitting for a minute or so, with his eyes closed) It is unavailing and futile tosay that I am grieved because in the absence of 'self ('me' as an individual) there are no 'others', andI see myself mirrored in all of you. Obviously, you have not come to me for mere sympathy, whichyou surely must have received in abundance from your relatives and friends. Remember, one goesthrough life, year after year, enjoying the usual pleasures and suffering the usual pains, but neveronce seeing life in its true perspective. And what is the true perspective? It is this: There is no 'me',nor 'you'; there never could be any such entities. Every man should understand this and have thecourage to live his life with this understanding.
Do you have this courage, my friend? Or, must you wallow in what you call your grief?
V: Maharaj, pardon me, I do not fully understand what you have said, but I do feel startled andshaken. You have exposed the core of my being, and what you have said so pithily appears to be thegolden key to life. Please elaborate on what you have just said. What exactly is it that I must do?M: Do? Do? Absolutely nothing: Just see the transient as transient, the unreal as unreal, thefalse as false, and you will realize your true nature. You have mentioned your grief. Have you everlooked at 'grief' in the face and tried to understand what it really is?
To lose somebody or something you have loved dearly, is bound to cause sorrow. And sincedeath is total annihilation with absolute finality, the sorrow caused by it is unmitigated. But eventhis overwhelming sorrow can not last long, if you intellectually analyze it. What exactly are yougrieving for? Go back to the beginning: Did you and your wife make any agreement with someonethat you would have a son — a particular body — and that he would have a particular destiny? Is itnot a fact that his conception itself was a chance? That the foetus survived the many hazards in thewomb was another matter of chance. That the baby was a boy was yet another chance. In otherwords what you called your 'son' was just a chance event, a happening over which you have had nocontrol at all at any time, and now that event has come to an end.
What exactly are you grieving for? Are you grieving for the few pleasant experiences and themany painful experiences that your son has missed in the years to come? Or, are you, really andtruly, grieving for the pleasures and conveniences that you will no longer be able to receive fromhim?
Mind you, all this is from the point of view of the false! Nonetheless, are you with me so far?
V: I am afraid, I continue to remain stunned. I certainly follow what you have just said. Only,what did you mean when you said that all this was on the level of the false?
M: Ah! Now we shall come to the truth. Please understand as truth, that you are not anindividual, a 'person'. The person, that one thinks one is, is only a product of imagination and theself is the victim of this illusion. 'Person' cannot exist in its own right. It is the self, consciousness,that mistakenly believes that there is a person and is conscious of being it. Change your viewpoint.Don't look at the world as something outside of yourself. See the person you imagine yourself to beas a part of the world—really a dream-world— which you perceive as an appearance in yourconsciousness, and look at the whole show from the outside. Remember, you are not the mind,which is nothing but the content of consciousness. As long as you identify yourself with the bodymindyou are vulnerable to sorrow and suffering. Outside the mind there is just being, not beingfather or son, this or that.
You are beyond time and space, in contact with them only at the point of now and here, butotherwise timeless, spaceless and invulnerable to any experience. Understand this and grieve nomore. Once you realize that there is nothing in this world that you can or need call your own, youwill look at it from the outside, as you look at a play on the stage or a movie on the screen, admiringand enjoying, perhaps suffering, but deep down, quite unmoved. ••
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