How A Loved One’s Death Can Influence You Physically

When one loses a parent, how can one recover from the grief? And What can one do that would be beneficial for that being? In this talk, Sadhguru answers how you can navigate the complex emotions brought about by losing a loved one.

Transcript

Grief,

We must understand,

It is on many different levels.

Somebody close to them died somewhere,

They will feel this because within the body there is a certain process.

Because what you call as a parent is the basis of this body.

There is a very deep memory connection between the two.

Death simply means somebody who was available to you is now absent,

That's all.

It is not because one life vanished,

You're crying about it.

It is just that somebody who was,

You know,

Filling a part of the collage for you is absent,

So it leaves a hole in your life.

Depending upon how close they were,

Accordingly it leaves that big a hole in your life.

So what you're battling with is not the death of a person,

What you're battling with is the size of the hole they have left in your life.

Suppose a far away relative or a friend,

Somebody that you know,

An acquaintance died,

You feel bad for an hour and then you get back to normal.

But somebody very close and dear to you passed away,

Now they've left a huge hole.

So your problem is you're trying to tend to this hole,

Which is within yourself.

This hole has happened essentially.

Now what I say may sound little brutal for people who are in that situation,

But one must understand this.

If you look for solace,

Yes,

If somebody comes to me who have just lost somebody dear to them,

I will also hug them and you know,

Protect them and give them some solace.

But you must decide whether you want solace or you want a solution to your life.

Because today this person will die,

Tomorrow that person will die,

Day after tomorrow I may die myself.

It doesn't matter.

But people keep dying because we are dying kind of people.

Let's understand this,

All of us,

We are dying kind of people.

First thing that must be fixed in our mind,

We are mortal by nature.

So having said that,

Grief,

We must understand,

It is on many different levels.

There is a psychological grief.

In thought and emotion,

You suffer the loss of the person.

But depending upon how much memory you have built within your body with regard to that person,

Let's say if it's your child or your husband or your wife,

Or some kind of very close bond,

Then a certain amount of memory is there in your body.

We call this traditionally in the yoga… yogic culture as runanubandha,

That is,

Body has developed a bond beyond your psychological friendships and companionships and love and whatever else you have,

Body itself has done this.

A whole lot of people feel this.

Somebody close to them died somewhere,

They have not received any information.

Suddenly they feel their energies are gone and you know,

They're like,

They don't know what's happened,

But suddenly they're almost sick.

They're feeling like that,

Completely drained out.

Then after a few hours or few days,

Information comes that this person is dead.

But well before the information came,

They will feel this because within the body there is a certain process that the memory starts undoing itself and you feel like you're dumped.

Your runanubandha with your parents or with your children is strongest till you're twenty-one years of age.

Once you cross twenty-one years of age,

It is called as the first quarter.

In the yogic way of looking at it,

Eighty-four is the cycle of life.

The first quarter is twenty-one.

Up to twenty-one,

If you lose a parent or if you lose a child below twenty-one years of age,

The pain will not just be emotional,

It will be physical.

It will manifest in the body because there is a strong runanubandha.

But beyond twenty-one,

It is largely psychological and emotional.

When we say runanubandha,

What you suffer emotionally or psychologically,

That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about physical memories.

Bodies have memories.

Because what you call as a parent is the basis of this body.

There is a very deep memory connection between the two that is at its strongest till twenty-one years of age.

Once you pass that,

It is weakened.

Is it gone?

Not totally gone,

Weakened.

Let us say you're forty-two years of age and you're a man,

Then you still have a reasonably painful runanubandha.

But let us say you're forty-two years of age and you're a woman,

Your runanubandha is almost negligible.

Not that it's not there,

It's there,

But very,

Very low.

So the suffering that you go through is largely emotional and psychological.

If you're psychologically very stable,

Emotionally balanced,

You will see you will handle it quite effortlessly,

Because there is no physical turmoil going on in the system.

But the same thing,

If they lose their husband,

That runanubandha is physically painful,

Because that is a different type of runanubandha.

A child below seven,

Seven-and-a-half years of age doesn't have much runanubandha.

The mother and father may have enormous runanubandha,

But on the other side,

There is not much runanubandha.

This is not just for psychological reasons.

A child below seven,

Seven-and-a-half years of age doesn't suffer much,

Doesn't go through the turmoil physically,

May suffer because of not being taken care of and you know,

Those kind of situations if they are there.

I don't want to go into the detailed mechanics of what it is.

But if you are over forty-two years of age,

And you are a woman,

And you lost a parent,

This is why in this culture,

Women are not required to do karmas.

Karma is done for the dead.

Not so much for you.

But if you're below twenty-one years of age,

It's very,

Very important you do it,

Because it's both for the dead and for you.

It's very important for you,

Because the person who died,

Died,

Whatever happens,

Happens.

But your life can be in a constant turmoil,

Because there is a physical memory,

Which torments you at a different level.

Even if you're mentally stable,

Emotionally very balanced,

Still there is a certain torment going within you.

For this,

There are yogic processes with which you can rejuvenate the system.

There's a whole system of things to do.

Here at the yoga center,

We've kept it very alive.

For people who lose their loved ones,

We do certain processes so that the physical memory is taken away.

Once the physical memory is taken away,

The psychological suffering can be dealt with by the individual person much more easily.

How to perform karmas and kriyas for dead,

If you're not able to physically do something?

The simple thing is to go into a three-day period of sadhana.

Because internally you can do this,

Beyond a certain age,

It is largely for the dead that we are doing it.

But there is an element of that.

It's not totally gone.

Our bodies are never one hundred percent free from the genetic process that we have received from our parentage.

There is a way to be above that.

But we are not absolutely free,

Physical body functions in a certain way.

So just three days of withdrawal and a certain type of sadhana,

If you don't know anything else,

Simply just do the Mahamantra,

Amnama,

Shivaya,

Intensely for three days as much as you can,

A minimum of four-and-a-half hours a day if you do this.

You don't have to really bother about that because it's also nice to withdraw,

It's a sensitive time.

But now deaths and funerals and what happens post death is all become a social nonsense that you have to have people at home,

You have to serve them drink,

You have to serve them food.

You know,

This in the Western countries,

It's become a big thing.

Then in India,

Certain kind of thing is building up.

It's best that you just withdraw from society and nonsense and spend some private time when somebody significant in your life passes away.

It's important that you withdraw and do something with yourself rather than simply trying to run the social thing like a distraction.

This social thing is people's way of handling their grief is,

Let's go to the movie,

Let's read a book,

Let's watch the television.

Don't look for distractions.

When there are troubles within us,

We must address it head on.

Don't look for distractions.

Conservation is not a solution.

You