問題：十個月前，我的兒子在海里溺水身亡。我確實臣服了，但當我感覺到隨之而來的寧靜與安詳時，我又覺得怪怪的。面對這樣的失去卻感到寧靜安詳，這不大對。

?？斯兀涸趽磹鄣娜怂篮螅匀坏拇嬖诜绞绞?，起初我們會感到痛苦，然后，會有一個深化。在那個深化之中，你會來到一個地方，在那里，死亡并不存在。你有那樣的感受，代表你已經進入得足夠深，你到了那個死亡不存在的地方。你的頭腦被社會，也就是你居住的當代世界，所限制，這個世界對于那個層面一無所知 – 于是，你的頭腦告訴你這樣是不對的。你的頭腦說：“我不應該感到寧靜，這不是一個人在這樣的情形下應該有的感覺”。但這只是一個被你生活中的文化所限制的念頭罷了。因此，當它發(fā)生，當這個念頭來臨，我們可以認出它 – 認出它只是一個受限制的念頭，它不是真的。

這并不意味著悲傷從此不再一波一波地回來。而是說在這一波一波的悲傷之間，你感受到寧靜的存在。當你感受到那個寧靜，你也就感受到了你的孩子的真正本質 – 那永恒的本質。所以死亡是一件非常神圣的事情 – 不只是一件悲傷的事。當你對形式的喪失升起習性反應，這才是可悲的。

當你進入得夠深，來到那無形之境，這件悲傷的事就不再是悲傷的，而是神圣的。然后，當某個與你親近的人死去之后，你會經驗到兩個層面。在形式的層面，是的，這很令人悲傷。而在那更深的層面，它是神圣的。死亡可以使你找到在你內在的那個層面。如果你在你之內找到了那個層面 – 那個生命的神圣的層面，你就是在幫助無數的人。死亡可以幫助你發(fā)現(xiàn)那生命的神圣層面 – 在那里，生命無法被摧毀。

臣服可以為你打開那扇門。徹底接納它。對那神圣的層面表示敬意，并且意識到那些你的頭腦在說的，不是真的，那只是一個受限的形式罷了 – 它不是真相。你感到寧靜和安詳是非常正確的。

面對死亡總是那扇進入無形的窗。當你接納它，臣服于它時。因為那個外在形式消失了，當你臣服于死亡時，你的頭腦變得寂靜。你并不是經由合理化的解釋來接納死亡。你可以有一些解釋，一些頭腦里的解釋，比如，嗯，他/她會輪回轉世，或是會去到某個地方安息。這樣的解釋可以帶來安慰，但是你可以進入一個比這更深的地方，在那里，你不需要解釋 – 那是一種對于死亡的神圣性的即刻了悟的狀態(tài)，因為當形式消融，在那里開啟的就是超越形式的生命。這正是那唯一神圣的事。這正是那神圣的層面。

當你失去某個東西，并且全然接納它的消失時，你可以對此有微微的一瞥。這是對于死亡的微微的一瞥，它可以帶給你一個小小的領悟 – 也許不止是小小的，如果你準備好了的話。

Eckhart on Peace After a Loss

Q:  My sons drowned in the sea ten months ago. I did surrender, but when I felt the peace and calm coming over me, it felt wrong. It was not right to feel peace and calm with such a loss.

ET:  The natural way of being after death of a loved one is suffering at first, then there is a deepening. In that deepening, you go to a place where there is no death. And the fact that you felt that means you went deep enough, to the place where there is no death. Conditioned as your mind is by society, the contemporary world that you live in, which knows nothing about that dimension – your mind then tells you that there is something wrong with this. Your mind says “I should not be feeling peace, that is not what one feels in a situation like this”. But that’s a conditioned thought by the culture that you live in. So instead we can recognize when this happens, when that thought comes – recognize it as a conditioned thought that is not true.  

It doesn’t mean that the waves of sadness don’t come back from time to time. But in between the waves of sadness, you sense there is peace. As you sense that peace, you sense the essence of your children as well – the timeless essence. So death is a very sacred thing – not just a dreadful thing. When you react to the loss of form, that’s dreadful.

When you go deep enough to the formless, the dreadful is no longer dreadful, it’s sacred. Then you will experience the two levels, when somebody dies who is close to you. Yes it’s dreadful on the level of form. It’s sacred on the deeper level. Death can enable you to find that dimension in yourself. You’re helping countless other humans if you find that dimension in yourself – the sacred dimension of life. Death can help you find the sacred dimension of life – where life is indestructible.

Surrender can open that door for you. Complete acceptance of it. So honor that sacred dimension and realize that what your mind is saying, that it isn’t right, is just a form of conditioning – it isn’t the truth. It is supremely right.

This is always the window into the formless. As you accept it, surrender. Because the form is gone, your mind becomes still when you surrender to death. It’s not through explanations that you accept death. You can have explanations, mental explanations that say, well, he or she will move on or reincarnate, or go to some place of rest. That can be comforting, but you can go to a deeper place than that, where you don’t need explanations – a state of immediate realization of the sacredness of death, because what opens up when the form dissolves is life beyond form. That is the only thing that is sacred. That is the sacred dimension.

You can get tiny glimpses of that when you lose something, and you completely accept that it’s gone. This is a tiny glimpse of death and it can give you a tiny realization – maybe even more than tiny, if you’re ready.