Grief as Spiritual Practice, Not Problem

In modern psychology, grief is often pathologized—something to process and move beyond toward "closure" and "healing." Mirabai lived grief as spiritual path. Her longing for Krishna was not a problem but the very substance of her practice. Grief was how she knew herself as capable of love, how she accessed the sacred, how she transcended ego. This reframing is radical for collective mourning. The cultural impulse is often to minimize grief: "Don't dwell on it. Move on. Keep calm." Yet Mirabai suggests grief itself can be the medicine. When we allow ourselves to feel the loss of a public figure fully—to question what their absence reveals, to sit with our own mortality—we are engaging in transformative practice. The grief opens us. We become less defended, more vulnerable, more human. This doesn't mean wallowing or refusing to rebuild; it means honoring grief's initiatory power. Cultures that ritualize grief as sacred—that give it time, space, and respect—understand this. Our collective capacity to hold grief deeply, without rushing past it, shapes our capacity for compassion, wisdom, and genuine connection.