Developing a tool for spiritual survival
Iwant to write about loss. What does it mean? And how does loss connect us to and even inspire spiritual survival within us?
Let’s take some obvious loss like the unexpected death of a loved one. After the shock come the stages of grief, ideally resolving in acceptance and forward movement. This has all been documented and discussed in our society. But how does this relate to spiritual survival? To me this is largely a matter of attention. While the attention is on the grief it is natural that it is experienced deeply. It is duration of grief that concerns us. This has to do with the choices an individual is able to make. It is possible for a person to have developed a spiritual avenue that can afford him movement into happier states of being when loss strikes. Survival depends upon our ability to find solutions in difficult situations. When you are plunged into the depths of an ocean it is more likely you’ll survive if somewhere along the way you have learned to swim.
A Great Auntie was unable to bear children. However, she loved her husband and coped with his intermittent alcohol binges with tenacity and courage. When sober, he was, to her mind, the perfect partner. When she was 50 years old, her husband left her for a younger woman, who shortly gave him a son. It was not only an enormous loss, but also a blow to my aunt’s whole being. She became ill. Her doctor did what he could to help her return to health, but she continued to decline. Her family was very concerned and the prognosis looked grim. The dear woman, however, had a very kind and wise doctor. He gently told her that he was unable to help her unless she made up her mind and heart to live.
His words touched a deep chord in her and she, realizing that she must play her part, chose to get well. His words were golden-tongued wisdom and she turned back toward life and spiritual survival.
This comes back to following a teaching, discipline or practice that helps the adherent create a way into regions of spiritual connectedness.
If we begin exercises of a spiritual nature before a crisis arrives we have the tools to help us in times of need. There is a tool for upliftment, for spiritual survival that can assist anyone, anywhere, at any time.
This sacred word can spiritually uplift people of any religion, culture or walk of life. You are invited to experience HU, the Sound of Soul, at a Sound of Soul event on Friday, May 18, at 7 p.m., at Mary Winspear Centre, in Sidney.
HU guides us to become our true self, Soul, through the ever shifting challenges of life in an unending and magnificent dance of spiritual survival and pure love. Erin Chard is a member of the ECK clergy with the ECKANKAR Centre of Victoria.