SEVEN

Relationship Heaven, Relationship Hell

The pain of relationship difficulties—both while we’re in them and when we’re losing them—can be excruciating. Here, as with everything else, an understanding of spiritual reality is key to attaining a peaceful heart.

When we think with love, we are being ourselves. The mind when it is wholly loving is whole, or holy. That is the source of happiness.

When we hold a grievance against someone, however, we are using our minds noncreatively, or destructively. This splits the mind in two and puts us at war against ourselves. That is the source of mental anguish.

Taking responsibility for the nature of our thinking is thus our greatest power to heal our lives. The dominant thought system of the world constantly tempts us to attack others, thereby attacking ourselves. But when we give our minds to God to use for His purposes, they become holy touchstones of another way of thinking and being. Our purpose on the earth is to see every moment as an opportunity to love. We thus become miracle-workers, or transformers of darkness into light.

Every moment of every day, whether someone is in a room with us or we’re just thinking about them, we’re faced with the decision: Will I bless this person, or will I judge them? It is quite astonishing to bear witness to what we’re actually thinking. Of the many thousands of thoughts that we think each day, most of them take issue on some level with what someone did or does. Whether it’s something seemingly innocuous, such as “She should have put that glass in the dishwasher,” or something truly negative, such as “I hate that bastard,” a grievance is a grievance. According to A Course in Miracles, any grievance we hold against anyone for any reason is an attack upon ourselves.

You can’t stop the war against yourself by ending only some of the battles. In taking up a spiritual path, we seek a loving attitude toward all—not just some. None of this has to do with how we “should” think or “should” be; it simply has to do with understanding the power of every thought.

We’re often deluded by the myth of neutrality—the idea that if we don’t actively wish anyone harm, then that is enough. But in fact there are no neutral thoughts. Our thinking can be mismanaged, but its power cannot be diminished; every single thought is a cause that will lead to an effect.

Sometimes I’ll be rushing through an airport with all the other travelers to this or that gate, to reach a plane that will take me to yet another city, to repeat the same pattern of speaking and book signing, and then return home exhausted. If my mind is attuned only to that physical reality, then I can feel overwhelmed and depleted.

Or, I can choose again. “Snap out of it, Marianne,” I’ll say to myself. And then, instead of closing myself off in an effort to protect myself from the mental jangle around me, I’ll look around at the people in the airport and send them my love. I will think about who they are, where they’re going, how many of them might be enduring hardships in their lives. How many of them might be ill or grieving. How many of them might be stressed about finances, or their marriages, or their children. How most of them are good, noble people, trying their best to live decent lives. When I do this, the greatest medicine—compassion—begins to flood my heart. My experience of my experience changes. What my ego had interpreted as “just another airport” becomes a holy temple where I have the extraordinary privilege of trying to love as God loves. My heart, my mind, even my body rise above the ego as I remember the truth of who I am by remembering the truth of who others are. A contented smile replaces a stressed-out frown.

The problem is not that doing this is difficult so much as it’s different. Training ourselves to use our minds as vessels of love runs against the grain of our usual mental habits. Yet it is the only true deliverance from the sorrow in our hearts.

Someone might say, “All that’s wonderful, Marianne, but right now I’ve got bigger issues to deal with than going around blessing strangers.” And we all do. But one of the problems with sadness, depression, and anxiety is that they tempt us to isolate ourselves—if not physically, then at least mentally and emotionally. Yet no matter how much pain we’re in, we can choose to love others. No matter how many tears we might have cried today, we can still look out upon someone else with an open heart. In truth, they probably cried as many tears as we have. In our compassion for what others have been through, the universe pours forth its compassion on us. We never really know what lies in the hearts of other people, but once we consider that everyone else is as sensitive as we are, and everyone else has hurt as much as we have, then our hearts are flooded with divine light and no darkness can hold us back. No matter what our pain or heartbreak, as long as we keep our hearts open to others, then new life will spring up around us.

None of this is merely a matter of theory; it’s only meaningful if borne out by practical experience. And it will be. Next time you’re waiting in a line at a store or sitting in a restaurant, silently send peace and love from your heart to the people near you. Your energy, the look on your face, even what you say and how you say it will change. And see whether or not what you put out then comes back to you. You might be reading a book like this one, but the words in a book can’t substitute for the power of your decision to see another person as a child of God. The only church, the only temple, the only shrine that ultimately matters is the ground on which you stand right now. It might be an airport. It might be a deli. It might be your bedroom. Just make it holy, and peace will come.

RELATIONSHIP ASSIGNMENTS

According to A Course in Miracles, relationships are spiritual assignments in which the Holy Spirit brings together those who have the maximal opportunity for soul growth. It should be no surprise to us, then, that relationships are not always easy. They’re magnifying glasses through which we can view what does and does not work in how we’re relating to other people. Every situation in life is a relationship in which we—and often those around us—can see exactly where we are free to love, and where we are bound by fear.

While the ego would argue that there’s a different kind of love for different kinds of relationship, the spiritual basics of relationship are the same no matter what form a relationship takes. Whether you’re my business acquaintance or a family member, the issue is this: Am I meeting you on the level of my personality, or am I extending to you the gift of my love? Am I here to judge you, or to forgive you? The answers will determine what happens next.

The ego sees other people from a transactional perspective, looking for how others can serve our needs. The spirit sees other people from a relational perspective, seeking for ways that together we can serve love. To the ego, relationships are fear-laden traps; to the spirit, they are holy encounters. The last thing the ego wants us to believe is that relationships form the basis of the spiritual journey. But they do. Every encounter, large or small, is an opportunity to glorify love. When I surrender a relationship to serving God’s purpose, the relationship most probably will bring me peace. If I try to use it to serve my needs as I define them, then it most probably will bring me pain.

So how do we get our needs met if our only purpose is to love? How do we set standards, get work done, have reasonable expectations, and not get taken advantage of if we see ourselves in any situation only as a miracle-worker, a channel for love, a servant of God?

The answer is, “Far more easily.” The miracle does not occur on the bodily level; it has less to do with what happens on the outside than with what happens on the inside. People can feel when they’re being blessed, and they can feel when they’re being judged. Everyone subconsciously knows everything.

If I wake up in the morning and pray for your happiness, meditate on our spiritual oneness, set my intention on being a representative of love in your life today, surrender all temptation to control you or judge you, then you will feel that. Our relationship will have a chance at being a positive experience. Otherwise, it will be everything the ego wants it to be, and you will feel that too.

The primary issue in our relationship to anything is purpose. The ego’s purpose in a relationship is to withhold love, while the spirit’s purpose is to extend it. The ego sees the world as something to serve it, while the spirit sees the world as something for us to serve.

How many times have you been asked, “What are you looking for in a relationship?” rather than, “What is the greatest gift you feel you can bring to a relationship?” How many times has someone asked you in reference to a relationship, “Are you really getting what you need?” as opposed to, “Are you really giving all you have?” A Course in Miracles says that the only thing lacking in any situation is what we’re not giving. It’s amazing how often we’re counting up someone else’s demerits, while hardly giving any attention to our own. The wily, insidious ego calls this self-care.

The ego sees every relationship as a chance to monitor another person’s spiritual progress, but never our own. The ego is like a scavenger dog seeking any possible evidence of another’s guilt, that we might attack, judge, criticize, and blame him or her. Its ultimate purpose is not to hurt the other, however, as much as it is to hurt us.

The ego never sees a reason to be satisfied with someone. It slyly tempts us to the thoughts and behavior that would keep love at bay, even while protesting that we want it desperately. “The only reason I want you to be different is because I love you!” According to A Course in Miracles, the ego’s dictate is “seek, but do not find.”

In a world where fear dominates the consciousness of the human race, it takes conscious practice to develop the emotional musculature of love. But boy is this hard when someone pushes all our buttons and triggers all our wounds. We can be all lovely and enlightened in the morning, and crazed with anger by noon.

And then, unfortunately, we’re off to the races. Some of the biggest judgments we make, the most pernicious attacks, are made before we even have a chance to think. We send a reactive text or email. We say things we later regret having said. We make decisions that only in retrospect we see as having been self-sabotaging.

This is why spiritual practice is so important. The most powerful tool for success in life, in any area, including relationships, is that our minds be channels for right thinking. And for this, they must be trained.

We do weight-bearing exercises to train our physical muscles, and spiritual exercises to train our attitudinal muscles. The first give us the power to physically move, and the second give us the power to remain internally still. One empowers us externally, and one empowers us internally. And both take effort.

It’s extremely helpful to spend time each morning, even if only five minutes, using whatever meditation or prayer technique you relate to, to train your attitudinal muscles to think with love. At the beginning of each day, before you meet or interact with anyone, consciously and proactively send your love before you. Then, say to yourself silently as you look at others throughout the day, “The love in me salutes the love in you.” To any situation, surrender to God whatever judgments you bring with you. This kind of practice will give you more than peace; it will work miracles in your life. There’s no room for darkness in a house that is filled with light, and there’s no room for fear in a mind that is filled with love. The key to attracting, maintaining, and healing relationships is to fill our minds with light—surrendering ourselves to be used by God, that we might become a blessing on everyone we meet.

Consider affirming these truths each day:

       1. I don’t need anyone else to make me whole; as a creation of God, I am whole already. I go into the world today to share with everyone I meet the abundant truth of who I really am.

       2. My function on the earth is to love, to forgive, and to bless. Every person I will meet today is an opportunity for me to act as love’s representative on earth.

       3. What I give to others, I give to myself. What I withhold from others, I withhold from myself. Everyone I meet today provides me with an opportunity to increase my joy by bringing greater joy to others.

As it says in A Course in Miracles, “prayer is the medium of miracles.” Consider it one of the greatest powers in the miracle-worker’s tool kit.

Dear God,

Please make my life

A sacred place

Not only for me,

But for those I meet.

May everyone who enters my life

Be blessed,

And may I be blessed by them.

Send to me those

With whom I am meant to grow.

Show us how to love each other

In ways that serve You best.

Amen

ATTRACTING LOVE

The universe itself is intentional, guiding all things to the actualization of their highest potential. This includes not only individuals, but also relationships. Love is always seeking us. The problem is how often we hide from it, scurrying away from the light of love into the darkness of our fearful selves. It wasn’t that love didn’t show up for us; it’s that we didn’t show up for love.

A Course in Miracles says that our job is not to seek love, but to seek all the barriers we hold against its coming. Those barriers, those walls in front of our hearts, are the places where we turn our backs on love. We do various things to keep love at bay, from behavior ranging from needy to controlling, dishonest to manipulative, avoidant to addictive, too hot to too cold, self-centered to smothering. These character defects are not where we’re bad, but where we’re wounded. Still, no matter what childhood experience might have caused those defects to begin with, they’re our responsibility now. When we are displaying our rough edges, other people don’t think, “Oh poor dear, you’re wounded.” They’re more apt to think, “Oh Lord, get me out of here.” Which totally makes sense.

So, time and time again, we find ourselves blowing it at relationships—with friends, with colleagues, with family, with partners. And once again, the only real problem is our separation from God. The key to fostering soulful relationships with others is fostering our primary relationship with God, for there, we’re healed of the pieces of false self with which we so often sabotage our relationships. In my relationship with God lies my relationship with my true self, and only when I’m aligned with the truth of who I am can I align with the truth in you.

HOSPITALS OF THE SOUL

Relationships are where we come to heal, not because we’re always able to be our best within them, but precisely because we’re not. They do not just highlight our strengths; they put a magnifying glass on our weaknesses. And in a way, that is their purpose. They do not just expose our rough edges; they give us the chance to smooth those edges out. Healing is a kind of detox process, in which everything that needs to leave our systems must first come up and then out. That which lies unhealed within us comes up for review, that we might consciously see where we’re wounded in love and surrender the wound to God.

All of us are lonely, lonelier than we know, because we feel separate from God. And the ego, which is what convinces us that we’re separate from Him to begin with, offers us the most twisted of solutions: that we find one special person who will complete us, and then we will not feel lonely. This is seeking salvation in separation, which will only deepen our despair.

The obsession with finding what in A Course in Miracles is called “a special relationship” is one of the biggest guns in the ego’s arsenal. The reason we obsess about romantic love is because we project the expectation that it can heal the pain of our disconnectedness from the whole. We feel disconnected from God, from ourselves, from the earth, from other living beings; then, feeling bereft, we look for that one relationship that will make all the pain go away.

Wow, no pressure or anything.

Yet the idea of one special, exclusive relationship is a search for unity in separation. This goal of finding wholeness in one person not only counters the principle of enlightenment, it counters intimacy. For how could we be more intimate than that we are each other? Intimacy isn’t something to try to create; it’s something to accept as already accomplished. When we realize the other is us—not outside us—then we are likely to treat them as tenderly and as authentically as we would like to be treated. Which then creates . . . intimacy!

My ego decides I need you to behave a certain way in order to make my world okay. What I really need is to release you from the hook of my ego’s agenda for your life! We can release our grip on other people’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings. We can desist from writing agendas for other people’s lives. And we can detach from thinking that anyone or anything external to ourselves is the source of our good.

When surrendered to God to use for His purposes, the ego’s special relationship is transformed into a holy one. What A Course in Miracles calls a holy relationship is a hospital for the soul, where we recognize that our weaknesses will be made evident in the relationship for a reason.

If I only meet people who bring out my best, then, as wonderful as that is, there are probably some lessons left unlearned. It’s in those places where our unconscious wounds are made conscious that we have the opportunity to heal them, because only then can we see them. Until then, they direct our lives in detrimental ways.

The closer we are to genuine joining, the greater the probability that the weaknesses of one partner or the other—usually both—will be subconsciously triggered. “You’re needy and emotionally demanding” will meet “You’re arrogant and selfish.” Although the ego seeks relationship as a place to hide our wounds, the Holy Spirit uses relationships to bring those wounds to the surface—not to destroy the relationship, but to make it all that it can be. In the presence of mutual understanding, compassion, faith, and forgiveness, our wounds can be healed.

Sometimes, two people understand this, turning their relationship into a holy encounter and a conduit for continuous growth. Realizing that wounds are exposed in the relationship in order to be healed, they cleave to love despite resistance and commit to the effort of forgiveness and understanding.

She listens, and understands that her behavior was needy and controlling; she apologizes and behaves differently. He listens, and understands that his behavior was selfish and inconsiderate; he apologizes and behaves differently. As both become more aware of their own weaknesses—as they apologize, forgive, practice mercy, and seek to do better—the spiritual purpose of the relationship is served. Things that the ego sees as reasons to leave a relationship end up being things that the spirit sees as reasons why the relationship was formed. Sometimes, the lesson in a relationship is to stay and learn from what’s happening, whereas at other times the lesson is to realize that it doesn’t serve to remain there longer. There is no outer indicator of which lesson we are to learn; as with everything, the voice for God within us is ultimately the only reliable guidance system.

Whether the ultimate wisdom is to stay or to go doesn’t matter as much as whether we use the experience to expand our hearts. Even if we’re led to leave a relationship, it is as important that we be loving while leaving as that we be loving while staying. If we do not do this, then we will simply meet someone down the road who provides us with another opportunity to see our resistances to love, and to heal them.

TENDING THE GARDEN

Most of us are clear that once we buy a car, even if it’s the best car in the world, we’re going to have to do some things to maintain it. But for some mysterious reason, we often fail to recognize that we have to maintain our relationships just like that car. Anyone in his or her right mind sees a deep relationship with another human being as more precious than a car, but it’s amazing how much more attention people will give to tending their “things” than to tending their relationships.

The most powerful way to tend a relationship is to place it in the hands of God each day. Surrender to God is not just a principle; it is something we do. At times I’ve said to people, “Did you pray about this?” and they have responded, “I know it’s in God’s hands.” But that wasn’t what I asked! I did not ask whether it was in God’s hands (ultimately all things are); I asked whether they put it in God’s hands. All things will ultimately result in a loving outcome, but it is completely up to us how long that will take. Through prayer, we invite the Holy Spirit to enter into our minds and readjust our thinking, to produce a loving outcome not just in an ultimate realm but in the reality of our daily lives right now.

Dear God,

May I be only a blessing on this person,

And may he be only a blessing on me.

Heal us in our wounded places

And cast out our resistances to love.

Lift our relationship to divine right order,

Above and beyond all walls that divide us.

May forgiveness purify

Our hearts and minds,

That we might see only the innocence

In ourselves and in each other.

May my presence in his life

Contribute to his happiness,

And serve him on his path.

May our joining be a holy thing.

May it serve Your purposes

For us and all the world

And bring joy to all living things.

Amen

None of us is perfect. All of us make mistakes. And close relationships are a place where we’re bound to make them. In fact, until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know them. And until we’ve forgiven them their darkness, we don’t really know what love is.

Our relationships are temples of healing when we allow them to be. The ultimate truth of any relationship is that two innocent children of God are seeking to love and be loved. Someone else’s mistakes are simply where they hit walls which in that moment they could not see beyond—and it’s the same for us. A Course in Miracles says that we should interpret all that is not love as a call for love. If I judge you for your errors, I simply fortify them in your mind and in mine. If I forgive your errors, I give both of us the chance to feel the healing power of love.

Who among us is not scarred from the battles of love? Who among us is not pained by the struggles of love? Who among us is not longing for the comfort of love? As much as we all desire to love and to be loved, in this wounded world it can be very hard at times. But the only failure in love is to give up on love. A broken heart need not be a bitter heart. And while love can pause, it can never really end.

WHEN RELATIONSHIPS CHANGE FORM

Relationships at their deepest level are not of the body, but of the spirit, and in that sense they are never over.

The crux of a relationship lies not in its form, but in its content, and change in form does not mean the end to a relationship at all. Even when we separate from someone, we are only appearing to do so because relationships are of the mind.

A couple who divorces, for instance, does not “end” a relationship, but merely changes its form. Understanding this perspective can make a huge emotional difference to a person who is having a hard time giving up attachment to the previous form of a relationship. When someone has left a relationship that we would have preferred to continue, or when someone has passed from this world and we’re grieving their loss, the pain we feel can be crushing. But understanding the eternal nature of relationships—and the eternal nature of love—brings peace to even a tormented heart.

Sometimes we feel abandoned, betrayed, victimized, and heartbroken when a relationship changes form. But love to your door only stops if you stop it. That is why praying for the happiness of the lost lover is the surest way to transform your feelings. There is great emotional power in repeating about an estranged mate, over and over, “May he be blessed. May he be happy. May he be loved.”

Some might say, “But how can I pray for his happiness? I hate him right now!” But blaming the other person for “abandoning” us, or refusing to respect his or her choice to move in another direction, is an attack on ourselves as much as an attack on them. It deflects the miracle we need right then. Such thinking, and the behavior it gives rise to, will only repel them and create more distance. And even more importantly, it will make it harder for us to move on; our hearts will be cramped in bitterness rather than be open to new love. When we ground ourselves in the realization that such a relationship is only changing form, we find ourselves able to release others to do what they need to do and to be where they need to be. Depending on our own mental choices, we can be a victim or a victor in love.

Dear God,

Please heal my shattered heart.

May I see only what is truly there

And not be tempted to judge my brother.

Despite my tears,

I pray that he be happy.

I bless him on his path

Though it has led him away from me.

Purify my mind of all thoughts of guilt

That we might both be free.

Create a path of light

For both of us.

Dissolve the cords that no longer serve,

And strengthen ones that do.

Bless my brother in all he does,

And please, dear God,

Bless me.

Amen

LOSING PEOPLE, LOSING THINGS

According to A Course in Miracles, everything is a relationship. Sometimes our relationship is with another person, but sometimes it’s with a thing, a place, or even a dream we’ve cherished. Those relationships too can crash and burn.

I’ve known people who lost their entire life savings in an economic meltdown; soldiers who lost their limbs in war; people who lost their eyesight, their tongues, the use of their hands and feet due to disease; and people who survived years of abuse. I’ve known people so crumpled over from loss that they could hardly breathe. Yet I’ve also known people who rose above such things and survived to live a happy life.

We’re human beings, of course, so it’s impossible to live our lives completely detached from the things of the world. But what we think while in the midst of darkness determines how quickly the light will come. When we are suffering through the pain of loss, miracles emerge when we realize that despite appearances, loss is an illusion. In God’s universe there is no loss.

Only form can change, and only form can disappear. Content is changeless. The cycles of life and death are endless. What is yours is yours forever, and who is yours is yours forever. The universe is programmed for your happiness and automatically compensates in the realm of spiritual substance for any diminishment on the material plane. In a self-organizing, self-correcting universe, celestial forces immediately respond to all loss. For who you are cannot be diminished, and neither can your world. Not really. The changing miasma of the mortal world is merely an illusion, but you are not.

WHEN A LOVED ONE DIES

Because the ego posits that the life of the body is the only life, we interpret the death of the body as life’s end. We are crushed when someone whom we loved has died, thinking that our relationship with him or her is over. I remember when my mother died, thinking I hadn’t realized sadness could be so deep.

Having lost both my parents, my sister, and a best friend of thirty years, I’ve cried many tears over the death of loved ones. I’ve sat with parents who had to decide when to take their children off life support. I’ve grieved with young people who knew that the disease destroying them would kill them before the age of thirty. I’ve officiated at memorials of people who were murdered, and sat with their families while the horror set in. I am familiar with the reality of grief, both in my own life and in bearing witness to the agony of others.

According to A Course in Miracles and many religious philosophies, life does not end with the death of the physical body. Birth of the physical body is not a beginning but a continuation, and the death of the physical body is not an end but a continuation. In an ultimate sense, death does not exist because those who live in the Mind of God live forever. The body is like a suit of clothes that we simply take off when it’s no longer needed.

Faith does not keep us from grieving our lost loved ones, but it takes away the barbed wire otherwise wrapped around our hearts as we do. We can miss someone terribly yet be comforted by the realization that they’re alive on another plane of existence. When I think of the family in which I grew up, I don’t think of my father and my mother and my sister as gone, with only my brother and myself remaining. Rather, I see in my mind a photograph in which the three of them show in the negative and the images of Peter and me are exposed. But all five of us are still there.

Death does not end our relationships with those who passed. Life is a book without end; a single physical incarnation is simply one chapter of the book. In the next chapter, just as real, one person remains incarnate while the other lives on in invisible realms. Whom God hath brought together, no one and nothing—not even death itself—can put asunder.

In fact, amid grief, relationships can even improve. Forgiveness becomes easier when old hurts are seen in retrospect to have been unimportant. There is a way in which we see people more clearly once they’ve passed, and perhaps they see us more clearly, too.

When I think of my parents now, I am so much clearer about the gifts they gave me and so uninterested in the minor neuroses that mark the life of any family. I can rejoice that neither of them struggles with the challenges of sickness or old age any longer. Having felt at the time of my mother’s death as though my umbilical cord had been turned backward and I wasn’t sure that I even existed anymore, I now feel her invisible presence as a constant blessing in my life.

If I’m sad because I lost someone but feel deep inside that someday I will see that person again—that they are just in another room, in another dimension somewhere, still broadcasting although my set doesn’t pick up their station—then I can move past my suffering more easily. I can find peace in something that is more than a memory—that is a living reality in my heart. If, on the other hand, I think death is a finite end, past which there is no further life of any kind, then a loved one’s death remains a burden on my heart. Once again, the depth of my suffering depends to a large degree on how I interpret the experience.

I have come to trust the process of grief in my life and in the lives of others I’ve known. Suppressed tears are more dangerous than those that fall. Tears we cry can heal us, and tears we don’t cry can hurt us. Among other things, denying ourselves permission to feel our sadness can desensitize us to the pain of others. And that is never a good thing. A period of mourning—with all its wailing, its tears, and its suffering—isn’t necessarily the sign of a problem. It’s simply the sign of love.

No one escapes permanently the experience of our death, and few of us escape the experience of mourning someone we love. These things are part of life. In older societies, death was more familiar because it was all around us. While of course we celebrate the fact that modern medicine has extended the average life span, we’ve paid a heavy price for pushing death to the periphery of our lives the way we have. Pushing it out of our homes, or even out of our minds, is not the answer—particularly as we age. In fact, in the words of Carl Jung, “Shrinking away from [death] is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.” We suffer more from death because we misinterpret it than because it exists. It is our fear and misunderstanding of death that causes most of our suffering—not death itself.

Dear God,

I place in Your hands the tears I cry

Over the death of my beloved.

May she rest forever in Your arms

And be at peace in her eternal home.

Send Your angels to comfort me as well,

That my eyes might be opened

To the nonreality of death.

Connect me, God, by a golden cord,

To the heart of my beloved.

For I would know that in Your love

She and I are one forever.

Amen

For some, the heartbreak is over our own impending death. It is a task of maturity to surrender into the knowledge that we too one day will die, relaxing into the eternal knowing that when we leave this life we do not really leave so much as expand into the cosmic space of All That Is. A Course in Miracles says that one day we will realize that death is not a punishment, but a reward. It says we will one day evolve to the point where physical death will not cause anyone sorrow. For we will know that in reality, there is no death.

For those who feel in their hearts that their time may be near, a prayer for comfort and peace—

Dear God,

Please take away my fear of death.

The pain in my heart, I surrender to You.

Please take away my suffering

And the suffering of those I love.

Open my eyes that I might see

The light beyond the veil.

Show me the truth of eternal life

That I might fear no more.

Take care of those

I leave behind.

Bring comfort to them and comfort to me.

Death has my heart so frightened now.

Please deliver me to peace.

Amen