If we have lost a loved one, how can we deal with the grief?

Podcast:

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Lecture Summary

Experiencing the loss of a loved one often brings deep agony, guilt, and existential questions about life. This compassionate guide explores how to process grief by accepting what is beyond our control and leaning into spiritual strength.

Key Insights on Coping with Grief and Loss

• Understand the Roots of Agony: Grief typically stems from three main sources: the absence of the person, lingering guilt over what we could have done, and an overall disorientation about life’s purpose.

• Acknowledge Destiny: Recognize the boundary between what is in our control and what is beyond it, accepting that some events happen according to destiny while we focus on our present actions.

• Offer Spiritual Support: While we can no longer help departed loved ones physically, we can offer prayers and spiritual practices for them, connecting them and ourselves to a higher power (Krishna).

• Reframing Guilt and Moving Forward: Honor your loved one by considering what they would have wanted for you—releasing guilt, taking responsibility, and eventually moving forward with your life.

• The Dual Nature of Relationships: Human connections are horizontal (in the world), but the love, care, and support we receive through them are also expressions of divine vertical love from God.

• Finding Solace in the Vertical Connection: Though individual relationships can never truly be replaced, strengthening your spiritual connection with Krishna provides ultimate shelter, guidance, and solace through life’s transitions.

Key Takeaways

• Accept What Is Out of Control: Distinguish between personal responsibility and destiny to ease the burden of what could have been.

• Turn Guilt Around: Focus on living a life your departed loved one would have wanted you to live rather than staying trapped in regret.

• Strengthen Vertical Connections: Cultivate your relationship with the divine to find continuous care, love, and emotional healing when horizontal relationships change.

Full Transcription

First is that, see if you use a loud one like a parrot, broadly the agony comes from three different things. One is that person is no longer there in our lives.
The second is, maybe we could have done something for them. And the third is that, that may cause an overall disorientation in life. What is life all about? What is the point of living if something like this can happen anytime? So we have to find out which is the primary thing and then we deal with it accordingly.
So with respect to the I think for you, you feel that maybe you could have done something more for them. With respect to the second part, the key thing is to recognize that there is something called destiny. Destiny broadly means that there are things in our control and there are things beyond our control.
And the things beyond our control, they are not out of control but they work as per destiny. So all of us we recognize this. Like the whole pandemic happened and you were here and you wanted to go to India and you are going to come here.
There are things beyond our control. And what we need to do is accept what is in destiny but act according to what is in our control. So if something has already happened that is not much in our control.
But at the same time, the soul is internal. The soul has gone to some other place. And we may not be able to do something for someone who has departed from us.
We can’t do anything for them physically. But we can still do something for them spiritually. We can do some more prayers.
Do some spiritual practices. And offer those spiritual practices to them. And at a spiritual level, we are connected to Krishna.
He is also connected to Krishna. He is in Krishna’s hands. The Paramatma is there with everyone wherever that person goes.
So that way we can do something for them. Maybe I couldn’t do at that time but now this is something I can do. And secondly, with respect to this, see one of the best ways to deal with that sense of loss or guilt is to turn it around.
It’s a little scary but turn it around means what? If that person had been here, what would your father have wanted you to do? Certainly he wouldn’t have wanted you to live in guilt. So we can’t turn the clock back but our mind has the capacity to do that. So we can say if that person what would they want us to do? Take responsibility.
Certainly there is a time for grieving but you can think that ultimately they would want us to move on with our life. And whatever we have our horizontal relationship with others. Horizontal means in the world we have a relationship.
And we have a relationship with Krishna. That is a vertical relationship. So whatever affection, support, kindness, love that we get in any horizontal relationship that is coming from that person but it’s also coming from Krishna through that person.
It is, say for example, if there is a newborn child the mother offers her own breast milk to take care of that child. It’s one of the most intimate acts of love. It is the mother’s love but is it only the mother’s love? The mother did not do anything special to manufacture milk in her breast at that time.
The same God who sent a child through her womb into the world also sent milk in her breast to nourish that child. So it is not just the mother’s love for the child. It is definitely mother’s love.
We don’t want to depersonalize or minimize that. But it is not just the mother’s love. It is also God’s love for that child expressed through the mother.
So if we consider it this way, say we are here, our loved ones are here around us and God is above. So our loved ones will care for us. It is also Krishna caring for us through those loved ones.
So if you understand that, okay that particular person may not be there now at the time but Krishna is still there. We can connect with Krishna vertically and that will not replace the all-knowing connection. Our heart, if it experiences a loss, the pain of that loss will be there.
But the heart has the capacity to grow. So sometimes we may move on from the pain and the loss or sometimes we may move on with the pain and the loss. But that loss or pain won’t define us alone.
That alone won’t define us. Especially if we can strengthen the vertical connection. Then that is the time when we can get shelter, we can get solace.
And no relationship can be replaced by any other relationship I think. Each relationship, each person is individual. But at the same time we understand that, that same Krishna who offered him some guidance, support, wisdom, love, through one channel, that Krishna can offer it to him through other channels also.
So, again it’s not a replaceable, entirely replaceable. But the point is that we can, we can find that both a horizontal relationship and a vertical relationship that can help us move forward. That’s how we can actually grow in our life.
Yes.