埃克哈特谈失去之后的宁静

问题：十个月前，我的儿子在海里溺水身亡。我确实臣服了，但当我感觉到随之而来的宁静与安详时，我又觉得怪怪的。面对这样的失去却感到宁静安详，这不大对。

埃克哈特：在挚爱的人死后，自然的存在方式是，起初我们会感到痛苦，然后，会有一个深化。在那个深化之中，你会来到一个地方，在那里，死亡并不存在。你有那样的感受，代表你已经进入得足够深，你到了那个死亡不存在的地方。你的头脑被社会，也就是你居住的当代世界，所限制，这个世界对于那个层面一无所知 – 于是，你的头脑告诉你这样是不对的。你的头脑说：“我不应该感到宁静，这不是一个人在这样的情形下应该有的感觉”。但这只是一个被你生活中的文化所限制的念头罢了。因此，当它发生，当这个念头来临，我们可以认出它 – 认出它只是一个受限制的念头，它不是真的。

这并不意味着悲伤从此不再一波一波地回来。而是说在这一波一波的悲伤之间，你感受到宁静的存在。当你感受到那个宁静，你也就感受到了你的孩子的真正本质 – 那永恒的本质。所以死亡是一件非常神圣的事情 – 不只是一件悲伤的事。当你对形式的丧失升起习性反应，这才是可悲的。

当你进入得够深，来到那无形之境，这件悲伤的事就不再是悲伤的，而是神圣的。然后，当某个与你亲近的人死去之后，你会经验到两个层面。在形式的层面，是的，这很令人悲伤。而在那更深的层面，它是神圣的。死亡可以使你找到在你内在的那个层面。如果你在你之内找到了那个层面 – 那个生命的神圣的层面，你就是在帮助无数的人。死亡可以帮助你发现那生命的神圣层面 – 在那里，生命无法被摧毁。

臣服可以为你打开那扇门。彻底接纳它。对那神圣的层面表示敬意，并且意识到那些你的头脑在说的，不是真的，那只是一个受限的形式罢了 – 它不是真相。你感到宁静和安详是非常正确的。

面对死亡总是那扇进入无形的窗。当你接纳它，臣服于它时。因为那个外在形式消失了，当你臣服于死亡时，你的头脑变得寂静。你并不是经由合理化的解释来接纳死亡。你可以有一些解释，一些头脑里的解释，比如，嗯，他/她会轮回转世，或是会去到某个地方安息。这样的解释可以带来安慰，但是你可以进入一个比这更深的地方，在那里，你不需要解释 – 那是一种对于死亡的神圣性的即刻了悟的状态，因为当形式消融，在那里开启的就是超越形式的生命。这正是那唯一神圣的事。这正是那神圣的层面。

当你失去某个东西，并且全然接纳它的消失时，你可以对此有微微的一瞥。这是对于死亡的微微的一瞥，它可以带给你一个小小的领悟 – 也许不止是小小的，如果你准备好了的话。

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.