Emotionally challenging situations are often more difficult to accept than physical ones

Physically challenging situations are more easier to accept than emotionally challenging situations. So, it's like, say, if a limb is broken, and it's painful to accept, I was walking healthily, I was moving healthily, but it's okay, I can accept it.

I have to move on with it. But suppose, say, we are emotionally broken down because our relationship is in trouble, some big dream is not working out, then that becomes much more difficult to accept. To a large extent, we function at the physical level.

So, when physically something is wrong, we see it and we can't deny it that much. But when emotionally something is wrong, for a long time we stay in denial. Or we try to stay in denial.

No, no, it's not like this, it's like this. Okay, it's bad, but it's not that bad. So, denial is the opposite of acceptance.

Say, one of the, I was at a, I was in Canada, in Calgary, so they had to, the university, they had asked me to speak on death and death rituals in Hinduism. It was an unusual topic. So, the idea was that, they were studying the whole topic of thanatology, study of death, and then they were studying how death is accepted, or how is death dealt with in different traditions.

So, in Hinduism, they wanted me to speak. So, one of the questions that came up was that, there was this boy asked, if you have loved someone throughout your life, how can you burn their body? How can you suddenly stop loving them? Isn't it brutal to just set their body on fire like that? Isn't it much more dignified to actually put their body in a coffin and then bury it properly? So, see, I explained that, their every action has a worldview behind it. But, one aspect of the ritual of burning the body on death, and seeing the body burning, that is, it helps bring closure.

Because when somebody near to us dies, it takes a long time to accept it also. This person was there with me, suddenly they are gone. So, when that physically graphic activity is seen, the body is there, and the body is burning, and it is reduced to ashes.

So, then that, it's definitely graphic, but in a forceful way, gets us out of denial. And in a forceful way, by making it clear, this body is gone now. This relationship is, for this lifetime, it is over now.

Then it helps to bring closure. That's why something which is emotionally, something which is emotionally traumatic, having some physical gestures, or physical actions, that signify the end of that, that signify the conclusion, or the termination of that, that can help us to bring closure. So, when something is simply emotional, if we do something physical with it, then that helps us to bring closure.