Beloved, the moment of what you call death is always peaceful. There is no struggle. There is surrender to what has always been, and that is Eternity. Life as experienced in the world has most often been struggle against the Truth of Life. You think Earth life is supposed to last forever, even though you give lip service that it is not. But the truth is that Llife itself is forever. There is only Being. There is no death. There is no after life really because life continues and never ends. Body falls away. Spirit stays with Me, and it stays with you. In death, it is only the physical that has changed. But how attached you are to the physical. Sooner or later you will loose the hold your fingers have on it.

The physical obviously has no life of its own. You consider the body the moving force. But you also know this cannot be. The spirit does not follow the body. The body is not a free agent. It accompanies you. You do not accompany it.

The body is a leash that follows you around. It ties you to Earth, and yet you are untethered.

You feel great loss in your heart at the body death of a loved one near or far. In the shadow of death you have a clue as to the connectedness of all souls. Loss is a trick of the mind, beloveds.

Your friend has stepped over another threshold. This threshold is vaster than any you are aware of on Earth. But friendship has not ended. Your friend is with you now. He is more with you now because no longer does he have the distraction of physical life. No longer is he pulled in any direction but in the direction of closeness to love. Closer to love, he brings all within her soul's breath closer to love.

Your friend's passage through the halls of Earthly death is symbolic. There is no passage. Nothing has changed. There is nowhere to go and nowhere to leave. The only difference is in your thought. You were captivated by the existence of a physical being and all the senses. The senses are physical. You miss the physical sight and sound. You miss the imagined space the body filled. You miss the Earthly responses. All the while, the connection is intact, and your sense of Oneness now has the opportunity to become more refined.

A party was held on earth, and now one of the guests deigns to go home and you are still at the party. Part of you would like to go home as well. Yet you grieve that your friend left the party. Because your friend left the party doesn't mean he is gone. He is merely out of your sight right now. He stays in your thoughts but your thoughts are misinformed. Your thoughts tell you to be sad when you could be joyous that your friend has taken a cab Home, and one that you will also take by and by.

You want to join your friend at the same time as you are afraid to leave the party.

Friendship is in the heart not the mind. Do not let your mind tell you that a life is over and a friendship gone. The very fact that your heart yearns for your friend tells you that he is still here. This spirit that you cannot see but yet feel in your heart — this is the truth of your friend. It was ever so.

The physical was just a lot of scenery. Make-up. But underneath the make-up, behind the scenes is where life takes place. Whether the curtain is up or the curtain is down, what is changed? Merely a curtain, an illusory curtain. The curtain could be see-through net or thick velvet — it's still illusion.

There is no separation. There is no apartness. There is no loss. Why must your heart ache so? Let heartache go. You have your friend. He has gone nowhere. Your Loved One is here with you now.