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Finale and Prelude I
Resolution, Completion and Relinquishment in Sudden Death
Sunday 30 January 1994: Early in the afternoon my sister Arette and her husband arrive on their motorbike, having spent the morning visiting our father in a nearby rest-home. It has been some time since we shared at a deeper level, and today is to be one of those days. She wants to talk, and does just that for over three hours.
She speaks of her relationship with her father, of her long-term struggle to resolve old hurts and reach a point of peace. "You know, Jan," she says, "I think I've almost completed my business with dad." She goes on to talk at length about her son and daughter, both of whom are emerging from traumatic periods in their lives, and how overjoyed she is to see them settled and happy at long last. "For the first time ever I feel they're really independent and don't need me any longer." She speaks of the visit she and Dai had made last weekend to stay with her ex-husband and his new partner. "It's so good that he seems happy; I don't need to feel guilty any longer about leaving him."
It is time to go. As she stands at my front door pulling on warm leggings and crash helmet, her last words to me are, "And, Jan, after forty-six years I realise I'm not you." I have never seen her so alive, so confident, so ready for whatever the future might hold.
Sunday 6 March 1994: Today, at around 10.45 am, Arette and Dai were killed outright in a head-on collision. I hear the news by phone from my mother as I return home this evening. Seconds later I see their upturned burnt-out bike in the leading item of the TV news. For a moment I am stunned, then the details of the afternoon we spent together come flooding back, along with an almost instantaneous acceptance that all is as it is meant to be.
Monday 7 March 1994: I have committed to a three hour drive in order to spend the day with my mother. It is just dawn as I reach the stretch of road where, just nineteen hour ago, Arette and Dai died. I stop the car, and get out. It is as if the accident never was, the energy is so clear. Nothing has held them; they have gone.
Friday 11 March 1994: In ten days time Arette and Dai would have been married for two years. The funeral is held in their garden, just as their wedding was; the same people are present; there are the same two celebrants; and I keep wanting to say 'wedding', not funeral. Through the three hour ceremony I sit under a tree beside the two bodies, very aware of a continuous stream of bees and tiny butterflies visiting the exquisite pink and purple waterlilies piled on the casket lids. In the midst of death, the overwhelming beauty of ongoing life.
It is easy, in the case of sudden death, to be outraged; to feel that somehow the life has been unjustifiably cut off long before the completion of the life purpose. Sudden death, especially when the person is still young, seems to many a senseless waste of potential. However, Arette and Dai's death, she at forty-six and he ten years younger, exhibited a resolution, completion and relinquishment that belies this outrage, and was obvious to many who attended the funeral.
What is death? Very simply put, it is the response of the consciousness indwelling the form to the will and 'recalling Word of the Higher Self', or spirit within. That response leads to a major moment of transition which we call death. Alice Bailey calls it "an interlude in a life of steadily accumulating experience……. It marks a definite transition from one state of consciousness to another" (1) as consciousness frees itself at that moment from the limitations of form.
Just as all cycles within a lifetime are brought into manifestation, arrive at fruition, and achieve a point of synthesis which signals completion of the current cycle and soul-initiated transition into a new cycle at an expanded level of consciousness, so too does a complete lifetime. In lifetimes which are lived into old age it is usual for this pattern to be consciously completed by the individual, and obvious to those sharing his or her experience.
We have often assumed that in cases of sudden death the cycle had not been permitted to reach synthesis and completion, hence the outrage. However, this would appear not to be the case, particularly with more evolved individuals. Ends are tied up, resolution is achieved, the cycle is completed, and relinquishment occurs in a dramatic way. The process is simply carried out far more rapidly and at a much more subtle level which may not be obviously or consciously apparent at the time even to those most intimately involved.
Let us take my sister's transition as an example. There is evidence, from her afternoon spent talking with me and from an audio tape made by her four months prior to her death, that she had, in the months and weeks leading up to that moment:
Resolved many issues involving abuse - particularly those regarding sexual abuse and abuse of power
Resolved many other long-standing issues
Given a great deal of time and commitment to the mutual healing of herself and her new husband
Learned to forgive
Learned to accept and value herself
Cleared out the Solar Plexus and moved the energy to the Heart chakra
Put an end to living out the expectations of others or attempting to model herself on others
Ended both her own dependency, and the sense that she must be there for others who may be dependent on her
Learned to let go of them
Reclaimed her identity and autonomy
Come to the point where she could move on in a cohesive and aligned manner, and without parts of her invested in everybody else
Taken up her own power
Begun to detach
Achieved a sense, at some deep level, that the life purpose was clear and complete
Death is a systematic process of resolution, completion and relinquishment, and even sudden death can, as has been demonstrated, be preceded by a highly ordered completion overseen by the Higher Self At a conscious level Arette had no knowledge that death was imminent. Yet she had been impelled for some time to work through her major issues. The existence of such ordered and obvious resolution-completion can be seen as very strong evidence for the reality of the Higher Self.
Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli, in outlining the six phase Act of Will (2), clearly states that the process is applicable to both personal and Higher Self, as each in their appropriate time and place impulse the individual to ongoing unfoldment throughout the lifetime. This same Act of Will, slightly modified, can be seen just as clearly in death, where transition is impulsed by the Higher Self and put into place by the personality or personal self.
Stages of the Act of Will
1. Intention of the Higher Self as an aspect of the Universal Self or spirit (in relation to the recognised purpose of the life)
2. Choice and decision
3. Command (or 'recalling Word') of the Higher Self
4. Acceptance or surrender by the aspects of the personal or smaller self
5. Affirmation by the personal self
6. Execution of the transition, comprising resolution, completion and relinquishment, under the direction of the Higher Self
In cases of sudden death these stages are evident within a greatly foreshortened time-frame.
Both birth and death are initiated by the will of the Higher Self. In both cases a major shift in identification occurs: birth signals identification with form and the beginning of a cycle of separateness; death is an act of reunion. In the less evolved individual both of these points create a hiatus in consciousness; in the very evolved continuity of consciousness is maintained throughout, physical birth and death being no more than observed 'moments of transition'. For some, death will be a fully conscious event, and relinquishment a deliberate act of spiritual will.
Sudden death occurs as a response to the destroyer aspect of the will, which seeks to precipitate full immediate identification with the Higher Self and greatly amplified service. Therefore Will types may be more likely to experience sudden death, of cycles within the life or the life cycle itself, where cut-off is instantaneous, without regrets or any backward pull. Arette was born in Aries; her life was punctuated by sudden and painful transitions; her life was to end just as swiftly.
Sudden death very abruptly and often with considerable force propels the consciousness from the physical body. One minute the person is conscious on the physical plane, then there is an instant shift of active consciousness to another plane. This frequently occurs just prior to the point of impact and may, especially for an individual with unresolved dependency or desire ties to loved ones, possessions or form life, leave him or her confused or temporarily 'stuck' at the place of death. People with etheric vision have often reported seeing such entities at crash sites or in battle zones. In Arette and Dai's death this was definitely not so.
In the period which follows the other elements of the smaller self drop away, their essence gathered up by the Higher Self. In sudden death it appears possible for this process to occur much more rapidly than is usually the case. Arette lived for fourteen minutes after she was catapaulted from the bike. We will never know what she experienced during that time. All we can know is that total relinquishment on her part was very rapid, suggesting that resolution and surrender to the Higher Self had been completed, leaving no residual attachment or will-to-live to hinder the transition.
Death is the prelude or 'point of entry' to the new cycle. As the triumphant finale of a life and product of synthesis, it produces shattering of the physical form and release of the essence into expanded awareness. This is equivalent to the splitting of the atom, with its great release of light and potency. In sudden death the shattering is greatly accentuated and experienced as an electric shock. It results in immediate dropping away of the personal, direct soul contact and immense clarity.
It is crucial, therefore, that those left behind understand the transition process. Emotional outpouring brought about by shock, denial, guilt or anger, especially in the wake of sudden death, in most cases hinders relinquishment. If, before the funeral, it is possible for loved ones to catch a glimpse of the resolution accomplished in the months, days or even minutes leading up to the death, then overwhelming grief can begin to give way to acceptance, and the person's death can be seen in the context of their life as a whole.
Perhaps in such a context, Arette and Dai's lives emphasised emotional healing and a move toward confident assertion of the integrated personal self. Their death, together and on the bike which for both of them symbolised freedom, healing and at-one-ment with nature, was a means of literally hurtling them into ongoing expanded service unencumbered by regrets or unfinished business.
This article was first published in Psicosintesi: Psychosynthesis Magazine, Italy, April 1996.
Jan holds certification in Psychosynthesis, a form of psychology which sees the individual as a seamless physical-spiritual being.
References
1. AA Bailey: From Bethlehem to Calvary Lucis 1981 (1937) p242
2. R Assagioli: The Act of Will Turnstone Press 1984
By Jan Lawson
www.ists-spiritualschool.org
From section: Spiritual Journey
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