Permanent loss is not possible.
Please discuss. How does this play out in life?
I’ll start us out. We’ve all experienced gut wrenching loss, the kind that leaves us feeling broken and inconsolable. It may be the loss of a loved one (human or otherwise), a missed opportunity of a lifetime, a disabling illness, a major financial setback. Whatever the cause, we are heartbroken and sure we’ll never again have the joy of what we’ve lost.
Our certainty is based on the premise of linear time: past (everything that occurred before this moment), present (now), future (everything which will happen after now). Since now represents a snapshot in linear time, by the time we’ve read this sentence, that action is already in the past.
In the spiritual reality which transcends dimensions, space and time are concepts used to generate the prevailing mindsets of certain dimensions. For instance, the separation consciousness that characterizes third-dimensional existence relies of the differentiation and comparison space and time provide to define our perceived separation from the divine and the rest of creation.
In the grander spiritual sense, without the artificial delineation of time all happens simultaneously. There is no past and no future, just an eternal now. From this perspective, whom or what we have lost is always with us, part of the ever present now.
Today’s message reminds me that it is impossible in spiritual reality for loss to be eternal. Even that which I have experienced fleetingly is part of me forever. If I am willing to focus on the sensations, memories, and feelings of what I believe I have lost rather than the loss itself, whom or what I cherish is fresh in my reality right now. In this way, in spite of the constraints of separation consciousness, I can keep my treasured feelings and experiences alive in every now moment.
How about you? How do you cope with major losses?
For an expanded discussion of how space and time reinforce separation consciousness, please see Chapter 30, Time and Space, in my book The Sharing: The Owner’s Manual for Being Human.