I was asked if we “invite” the death of someone close to us. Indeed it is a commonly held belief that we are somehow responsible for someone else's dying. I thought I'd share my thoughts on this perplexing question.

Let me first say that the human body is a “form” and therefore, by definition, temporary. All forms eventually fade away, disappear, dissolve or die. That doesn't change the fact that we become very attached to life forms. So naturally, when we lose a form that we are greatly attached to, we suffer – sometimes unbearably. Having lost loved ones, I understand how hard it can be to lose someone you love. With that said, let's examine the true nature of what causes grief.

Grief, like all low frequency emotion is caused by our own distorted beliefs – just because these beliefs are shared by the majority of humanity does not make them any less false. What are these distorted beliefs? I'll just mention a few … “God did this TO me” is a good example.
It is not unusual to think thoughts like,

“God has let me down. He and I had an agreement that he would protect my loved ones, and now he's let me down.”

Do you hear the Victim perspective here? First of all, there is the accusation that God does this TO us -that there was an “agreement” with God that this wouldn't happen … can you hear the presumption in thinking that we can even know, much less tell God when and what he will do! Dying, how and when it happens, is clearly ç. It is not up to us and frankly, has nothing to do with us! Trying or believing that it's possible to work out such deals with Deity is ego's way of feeding a painful victim story. “She/he wasn't supposed to die … It shouldn't have happened.”)

There is only one reason someone dies and that is because their life is complete. What takes the body out of form, whether it be disease, accident or even suicide, is simply a means of exit. It is that simple.

It is the ego that wants to personalize death, making it about being punished or “let down by God”. Again, the “God did this to me!” victim mentality. Can you hear the tremendous suffering that that sort of thinking creates?

There is also the distorted idea that if someone dies, it's a bad thing … even a failure. Could this possibly be true?

As I said earlier, every form dissolves eventually. It is the design and destiny of all form life. It is the Way of It.

The Law of Mentalism teaches that we are made of Universal Mind Substance that is formless and eternal. This is what we truly are and cannot be destroyed through death. It is much like putting salt crystals in warm water and watching them dissolve. Is the salt gone just because you can no longer see it? Of course not! Neither are we “gone” simply because our form dissolves. Taste the water and you can see that the salt is as much present as before it was dissolved – only the form has changed.

The Law of Cause and Effect teaches that there are no accidents … no chance happenings. This implies that the dissolution of the body can only happen “right on time”. No one dies “before their time”. How can that be in a world where there are no accidents or mistakes? As Byron Katie says, “No one dies who has not completed their life”. (Even by suicide – we cannot take our lives without Universal consent- why? Because our ego self is not in charge of such things.)

Another story that creates great suffering is that this shouldn't have happened. This is ego in resistance to Reality. It did happen so it must've been supposed to happen. We don't need to understand “why?” in order to trust that this is so. There is another principle that brings inner peace here… and that is the reminder that the Universe is a friendly and benevolent place. It is only when we project our painful stories out that it appears otherwise. Death is natures way of moving us on to what's next – it is not wrong or bad or unfortunate. It is only the ego's story that sees death as a terrible thing … as something being “taken from me” – frankly, these feelings have little to do with “loving” the deceased … they are more about a “how could this happen – what about me?” perspective. I know this may sound harsh and it may not be “right time” to share some of these ideas with someone who has just lost someone they love… they may not be ready to hear it yet.

Grief appears to be a process our emotional body must go through in order to let go. It is our story about what the deceased meant to us and about what losing them means that is being grieved as much, if not more than grief for the deceased. Our relationship with them always took place in the mind through a story we created about them and that does not change. The story about that person may change through death – for instance, going from a story that says; “She is my precious daughter , etc”, to an extremely painful grieving story, of; “I will never see or hear her again – I can't stand it!”. But Reality is that that person is as much alive today as ever … form has been dropped, that's all. We are simply being required to move our relationship with the deceased to the limitless confines of our mind. This offers the chance to make conscious and release our story about them. I do not mean to imply this is easy … we are ingrained in a way of seeing the world that, because we believe these collective notions without having ever questioned them, can make this process a very difficult one. This, to me, is the sacred purpose of grief.

The grieving process can serve us – it can bring us depth through the questions it evokes. It can prompt us to seek greater understanding and offers an opportunity for real awakening. I believe it is possible that a loved one dies to offer us this very opportunity. This may be an answer to “why?” death comes to those we love. Perhaps it is a way for the Universe to offer us the chance to really explore our limiting beliefs about ourselves and life. Do we “attract” death of loved ones to us? I think it is more likely that the “agreement” we may have is one made with the Universe to experience the very loss. The daughter, through her death, offers her mother a chance at rebirth. Death comes, not as the enemy, but as Healer and The Great Awakener.