One of our beautiful golden retrievers who was suffering
from cancer and could no longer move had to be put to sleep by our vet. Our dog was such a lively dog who
unconditionally loved each of us for the 12 years of her life. Every time she would see one of us coming she
would squeal with joy.
If you have ever lost a close family pet, I am sure you can
appreciate the range of emotion we all felt, from love and gratitude to deep
sorrow and grief. I will never forget
the image of my grandson Jacob with his face buried in his dog’s ear, racked
with sobs as he gently touched her with so much gentleness and kindness. Through my own tears I felt such love for
both of them at that moment.
As a student of the 3 Principles for 27 years I have learned
the beauty of allowing all thoughts and feelings to flow through me
freely. My teacher Syd Banks taught us
that we don’t have to be frightened by any of our experiences. The play of thought is constantly bringing us
a wide array of feelings. When we
understand that this wide array is the play of the Principles we can appreciate
this dance created by the spiritual energy of life.
No thought or feeling in and of itself can hurt us
psychologically if we don’t struggle with it.
We struggle with our experience when we judge it, try and resist or stop
it, try to manipulate it, or wish we weren’t having it. It is this struggle against the already
created thoughts and feelings that creates the problem. It is this struggle that takes us out of the
now and gets us entangled in the apparent reality of our thinking. It is this struggle that blocks the arising
of our next thought that will shift our feeling. After our dog died, Jacob stopped crying,
went outside to ride his bike, and then he came back to her grave in the
backyard and start crying, then he was angry and demanding, then he was back
happily riding his bike. Left alone,
struggle free, our wisdom keeps shifting our thinking in a healthy
direction. This is how the wisdom of our
mind guides us to healing.
When we understand that all feelings are just the natural
creation or play of spiritual energy manifesting, then we can let it be and
allow it to shift and change on its own.
This shift happens naturally and is guided by the intelligence, or
wisdom, behind life. When grief and loss
and sorrow wash through us unimpeded and without judgment we experience these
feelings as the natural and beautiful flow of life.
When our understanding of the play of thought allows us to
stand open and receptive in the face of any thought whether of love or grief,
and it flows through us naturally, then a deeper unconditional love arises that
embraces all of life as it is and it flows out of us to touch those around us. And I know that the deep love we felt for our
dog and each other was both uplifting and healing.
We are sorry for your loss but thank you for sharing this personal reflection on grief and love and most importantly on how our natural wisdom copes with anything that life throws at us.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how to do justice to this humanity and wisdom in writing. Dicken, thank you so much for sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this very personal experience, Dicken, and your wise words. Am deeply touched xxx
ReplyDeleteJust beautiful. I appreciate your sharing your tender experiences with us. Moving through the pain and grief is the only way out of it. I did not grow up learning this, and am now incorporating it into my life. Healing is faster this way. Thank you. Judy
ReplyDeleteDear Dicken, again my heart goes out to you, Jacob and all you family who was touched by Baker's life and death! Thank you for sharing your deep understanding and experience of the Nature and flow of our thoughts feelings and emotions. May all beings swiftly and effortlessly enter into the lightness of that view and liberationen perspective. Love. S
ReplyDeleteHi Dicken, please help. I thought I understood from 3Ps that our feelings (created by thought) were not reality but an illusion of ours, and so both ‘negative’ as well as ‘positive’ spontaneous thoughts were not to be trusted. And then someone asked me about loving thoughts which I agree do feel ‘divine/Mind’ and not just ‘positive thoughts’ - hence my confusion.
ReplyDeleteHere, you have described the feelings of grief or love as spiritual energy manifesting which can be allowed to move through us, just as you describe the way we need to allow thoughts to move through. Are these feelings the same as thought or different?
Hi Jane,
DeleteMind is the source of every thought we have. Every thought created in us is immediately brought to life as a feeling. Every thought/feeling takes form temporarily and then disappears back into the formless, therefore we say that our thoughts are illusions. We have free will so we get to decide which illusion to pay attention to and act on. The wise have always suggested that we ignore the content of our negative thoughts and listen to and be guided by the positive thoughts that arise spontaneously in us (not the positive thinking that we try and do). When positive thoughts arise spontaneously, we often call that our common sense, because these thoughts feel right and help us make sense of life.
Hopefully this is helpful Jane. Let me know if this clears things up or if you still have questions about this.
Best wishes,
Dicken
Hi again Dicken. I appreciate your patience!
DeleteStill processing (!). I do get the idea that our spontaneous thoughts can often create disturbance (guilt, judgement etc, all unhelpful to our innate state of well-being), and that when we have more spontaneous, commonsensical, helpful thoughts, we just have a ‘knowing’ (presumably from Mind) that they are right or better for us. And that both are a product of – and/or are the same thing as – Mind, and with which we can do as we choose.
But are grief and love really coming just from thought? It just feels deeper. You could justify that underlying grief are the thoughts: ‘I can’t bear to lose this person, life/I will never be the same, I can’t go on without them, it’s terrible’. But usually by accepting it and letting it go ‘through you’ as you say, the grief eventually subsides, noticeably exactly in the way it did with your grandson, intermittently but over a longer period of time and with greater intensity. However, in pathological grief, the mourner is not allowing the grief to pass through and increases the intensity or the irrationality of those thoughts, however perhaps unwittingly.
And grief is the flip side of love. But love (AND grief, I still argue) feels more than ‘just’ thought, it feels like it comes from a deeper place. I would find it hard to tell someone, ‘oh, it’s just thought’.. are you saying that grief and love are also illusion?
Forgive me if I haven’t quite got it yet!
Hi Jane,
DeleteEvery moment of our experience is created from thought. Thought as a principle is the infinite formless creative energy behind life. There is nothing deeper, or before, or beyond this energy. Thought as a principle is the source of every human feeling. When I say a feeling is just thought, I mean that the feeling is created from within, and is not caused by anything else in the world. I have asked thousands of people who are grieving where they think there feeling is coming from, and not a single person has answered that it is created from the formless energy of thought and they point to something in the world of form that they think is causing their feeling. My clients are relieved to find out that their feelings are not caused by the world and that the power of thought has the capacity to create ever new thoughts and feelings. I continue to point them toward the power of thought rather than the content of their thinking.
Dear Dicken, thanks, this is beautiful. My beloved 17-year-old cat died yesterday and I am feeling inconsolable. To allow the feelings to wash through me unimpeded feels like such a relief. A little more challenging is not to wish I wasn't having the feelings, as they hurt... but I do honor the love I had for him and his beautiful companionship through the years. Thanks again and much love, Ali
ReplyDelete