An Enlightened Perspective on Death, Dying and the Emotion of Loss

After announcing the passing of a student of my teachings, I received this question from a video viewer. I thought that the question and answer are significant enough to post here.

Question: How does the recent death of your student make you feel?

My Answer: The loss of anyone will come with feelings of sadness.  It is a natural emotional response – a principle of emotional energy.  When we connect (become more oneness) we feel an increase in emotional energy (happiness).  When we disconnect (become more separate) we feel a decrease in emotional energy (sadness).  These movements towards unity and separation are what drives all human desire and human choice.

Even the desire for spiritual enlightenment is based on this energetic principle.  Enlightenment is the experience of oneness with all life, occurring in the strongest way when we perceive the 1st dimension of creation – the single White Light state.   Accompanying this fullest experience of oneness is the strongest experience of happiness.  Likewise, there also exists a fullest state of separation – characterized not by fear (because fear is a form of resistance to the experience of separation), but by the strongest lack of emotional energy.  It is experienced as an aloneness from everything, including even the tiniest feeling of happiness.  This is experienced as a state of Absolute Darkness.For a person to experience the greatest amount of wisdom and enlightenment, he/she must experience both states – pure Light and pure Darkness.  Only then will he/she truly gain the wisdom that all experiences contain a harmony of these 2 principles and that pure Light and pure Darkness are not separate from each other.  Rather they are both necessary to create the experience of life.

Both pure Light and pure Darkness appear within the clear state of Awareness, Intelligence and Creative Energy (the essence of the Soul or Self).  This clear state or Pure Light or Pure Consciousness, as it is called, contains within Itself all experiences and all energies and therefore is the true state of freedom and enlightenment.

A soul will often need to experience both the pure Light and the pure Darkness to realize in fullness the knowledge of the Pure Consciousness that it is, as well as to gain genuine freedom from identification with any forms of experience existing with the interplay of pure Light and pure Darkness.  This is what frees a soul from suffering and desire.

Yet even while the soul is free from suffering and desire, the physical body, emotional energy system, and mind are still creations of this interaction involving pure Light (appearance of unity) and pure Darkness (appearance of separation).  The soul knows it is not these, but contains these to have it’s experience of existence, so the soul allows these forms and bodies to be as they are, change as they do, interact as they will.  And the soul is free, not identified, not resisting, not desiring.  The soul allows the experience of all life to be as it is, allows it’s own body, emotions and mind to be as they are, and the soul is free.  This is the only way a soul can be truly free while still having the human experience.

In some spiritual groups, like certain schools (but not all) of Buddhism, there is an emphasis on being desire-less.  Yet, if we examine this state, a true desire-less state is a state without movement or change.   As we examine the nature of all forms, these forms are always changing and are never without movement.   It is impossible to experience a 100% desire-less state without also losing awareness of everything, including one’s own awareness.

One’s awareness has the qualities of desirelessness, however for the awareness to have an experience of any kind, it has to be aware of something.  Anything that the awareness can be aware of will be created through the interplay of pure Light (appearance of unity) and pure Darkness (appearance of separation) and therefore have the qualities of movement and change.  The intelligence creating all movement and change has the qualities of desire.  Desire is inherent within all forms which is why they are constantly interacting and changing.  Desire exists as the attractive and repellent forces within atoms.  Desire exists as the force that seeks unity and avoids separation in the emotional universe (astral dimension).  Desire exists as the force that creates knowledge – the process of the unknown becoming known – in the mental universe (causal dimension).  Desire is the reason why every soul is having an experience of life.  It is also true that the Source Consciousness (God) has the desire to create the Soul and every form and experience that all Souls will have.  This is identical to stating that God is desiring to experience God’s own creation.

It is common that people interpret some spiritual teachings as stating that a person should be without emotional feelings.  I understand this to be an incorrect interpretation based on a lack of knowledge on the part of those who believe it and teach it.  When spirituality is taught in this way, it will create confusion and suffering in the students.   Everything that we experience in our consciousness is energy.  This energy is manifesting in infinite forms and is constantly in a state of change.   Success on the spiritual path comes from understanding how to co-exist and co-create with these forms of life.  Success does not come from trying to stop these forms from appearing or changing.   A successful person in spirituality has learned how to experience peace, happiness and unity with all the forms that appear in their perception.  This internal state is a result of cultivating greater awareness, non-resistance, creating in harmony with the forms, and honoring one’s own innermost knowing.

When an awareness-based meditation is performed properly, it is cultivating this internal experience of greater awareness, non-resistance, creating in harmony with the forms, and honoring one’s own innermost knowing.

Blessings and Love,

~ Lincoln

6 Comments

  1. Serguei says:

    I thought desires were bad because they brought frustration
    that’s what philosophy teaches us at school

  2. Nikola says:

    Thank you for the explanation.

    There is an interplay between light and darkness, and in the experience of death of someone close, it can be intense. Of course, the emotional part is what it is. And actually it is very beautiful to feel sad in this way when something like this happens.

    But the Truth is that now the motionless body is just a change of form. There is no entity who has left us. We may have the experience that in this lifetime we will never again feel this unique expression of love that this person was.
    But for that experience to happen we must have tons of ideas, that are simply not true, and exist only in our heads.

    To put it mildly, this actually reveals who we are, because we are also subject to this. So if he who died left us, that means that we will also leave us. The value of this long continuity we call our life, does not come from the duration of it. This duration makes us think that we are leaving, but it is necessary because it also enables this Universe to exist in the way it is. Actually this definition also, that being in time is limitation, is a limit. So love goes both ways, in the temporary and in the eternal.

    But it is important that we are not here to discuss the forms that get caught up in this play, because of misidentification. Actually not the forms but we, who burden the forms not to change. We are here to be the One who can not leave anything. And that is the only Truth.
    All the rest are the projections that will happen, as they do. And that makes no difference at all.
    All the desires will get experienced, we might enjoy or not, it is that we are not the desires or the one who enjoys. They have nothing to do with us.
    Someone may say the Soul is creating the desires. And certainly we also always are the one who creates them. They are always here as form of True unconditional Love. Exploring the creation helps us see more intimately who is creating and what are we. It can as much break the illusion and also strengthen it if we believe we are separate.

    My personal experience is that there is actually no Soul, like separate entity from the ego. The Soul is just the word we use for ego that is in more tune and harmony with the whole Creation. And both are phenomena appearing in the awareness, they dont really exist if we stop believing in them. And we don’t already. The one who does has its duration and has absolutely nothing to do with us.

  3. Colin says:

    Hey Lincoln , I can’t think of what to say. This article was very interesting and I don;t think I have head you talk about this before.. This is a very interesting reality we are in. I know I will be very sad when you leave this world, but for now i’m going to move toward your teachings and dive into them with even more consistency and discipline. I’m here for you if you ever want any support or if you just want to chat.

  4. stefan says:

    “It is impossible to experience a 100% desire-less state without also losing awareness of everything, including one’s own awareness.”

    Mmm

    What about first-awareness, when only awareness exists … is it not possible to dive into that state … for e.g. purification… of course no-body no-soul no-mind no-intelligence will be there to remember it.

    Similar to ego and own pure awareness … when back in the ego … it has no memory of it to which it could relate, so for the ego it did not exist … the transcendental experience.

    So why can the “soul” not temporarily die into first-awareness and be “reborn” again …

    For me “soul” seems to be still an identity-structure like any other identity.

    Where first-awareness I can see … as not yet being IN the world of forms … not yet even moved in that direction.

    So first-awareness I can see as the building block the smalles “unit” of it all, from which everything else is created. The first “unit” arising from STILLNESS.

    like OM SAT CHIT ANANDA

    STILLNESS …then … first vibration and that first vibration becoming aware of it’s own vibration. (Of course will this first-awareness “include” the STILLNESS, but will never be aware of STILLNESS, as awareness = STILLNESS … NO-STILLNESS … STILLNESS … NO-STILLNESS … the vibration itself)

    Namaste

  5. Lincoln says:

    Hello Stefan. Thank you for your comment and insight. To reply to your comment on desire: In the original state of awareness, there is the existence of one’s self as awareness. Inherent in the existence is an intention. The Source is having an experience as you and therefore intended / desired to create this experience. The existence of a soul, because the soul is a creation of the Source, requires that intention / desires is present.

    In the deepest state of original awareness existing alone that a soul can experience, the soul is not experiencing intentions or desires arising as thoughts, feelings or movements of form within it’s personal mind. The personal mind has already been silenced to reach this state of original awareness existing alone. The soul could essentially claim, “I am free from desire in this deepest state.” However Source would not have this same claim. Source would theoretically state, “I desire to create the soul.”

    To reply to you comment on awareness and the soul: Sat is (truth) intelligence. Chit is (consciousness) awareness. Ananda is (bliss) energy. (Another popular translation of these terms.) These 3 qualities exist together as the manifest self (soul). All 3 must exist as creations of the Source. Remove one quality and all 3 are also removed. Beyond Sat Chit Ananda is the Unmanifest Source. The self / soul is existing as the manifest creation of the Unmanifest Source. When the soul (Sat Chit Ananda) is removed, then only the Unmanifest Source exists. The self / soul is the Unimanifest Source, yet only has an experience when it is in manifest creation.

    In this explanation, I have used my terms for I feel that they convey more accurately that which I am describing. I realize, of course, that you are using STILLNESS to mean Unmanifest Source. The reason why I did not use stillness is because stillness is a defined as the state in which a form does not have perceived activity. The term Unmanifest does not include the existence of a form that perceives or a form that is without activity.

    Blessings and Love

    ~ Lincoln

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