How do I deal with grief?

“By hiding your misery you are not going to get out of it—you will create more misery. The first thing is to encounter it”

On one hand we go on trying not to be miserable and on the other hand we go on cultivating the ego. All our approaches are contradictory. The ego is such that even if it is in hell, it will not admit it. The ego goes on decorating itself. You ask, “Do I have to accept hell before I can find bliss?” There is no other way. You will not only have to accept, you will have to understand and penetrate. You will have to suffer the pangs and the pain of it so that you become perfectly aware what it is. Only when you know what it is will you be able to know how you create it. And only when you know how you create it, then it is up to you whether you want to create it any more or not. Then it is your choice. “I don’t understand how,” you say. Yes, it is difficult to accept hell. Our whole effort is to deny it. That’s why you may be crying within but you go on smiling on the outside. You may be sad but you go on pretending you are happy. It is hard to accept that you are miserable. But if you go on denying it, it will by and by become disconnected from your awareness. That’s what happens when we say something has become unconscious. It means it has become disconnected from consciousness.

By hiding your misery you are not going to get out of it—you will create more misery. The first thing is to encounter it. Never move unless you have encountered your reality, and never pretend to be somebody else. That is not the way happiness ever happens. Just be yourself. If you are miserable, then be miserable. Nothing wrong is going to happen. You will be saved many troubles. Of course nobody will fall in love with you; okay—you will be saved many troubles. You will remain alone, but nothing is wrong in being alone. Face it, go deep into it, take it out, uproot it from the unconscious and bring it to the conscious. It is hard work, but the payoff is immense. Once you have seen it, you can simply throw it away. It exists unseen, it exists only in the unconscious, in the darkness. Once you bring it to light, it starts withering. By hiding your misery you are not going to get out of it—you will create more misery. The first thing is to encounter it. Bring your whole mind to light and you will see—all that is miserable starts dying and all that is beautiful and blissful starts sprouting.

Read more in the original book