Through devotional practice, Mirabai's ego dissolved, allowing her to see others and herself with radical clarity; anticipatory grief offers the same stripping away of illusions.
Mirabai's devotion was inseparable from a progressive dissolution of her separate self—her identity, her pride, her defensive self-image. As the ego thinned, her capacity for seeing expanded. She could perceive Krishna in all things; she could love without needing validation or return. Anticipatory grief can work similarly. When we are facing loss, the trivial defenses and ego concerns that usually preoccupy us fall away. We see the person more clearly—not as an extension of ourselves or a fulfiller of our needs, but as a separate being we have been privileged to know. We see ourselves more clearly too: stripped of pretense, reduced to the essential truth that we love and we will be left behind. This clarity is painful but liberating. It allows us to relate to the person with less projection and more genuine presence. The examined heart that Mirabai cultivated through devotion is available to us through the stark honesty that anticipatory grief demands. In losing the comfortable illusions, we gain genuine sight.
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