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Enlightenment Journal | Summer 2011

Last Hour Yoga

Wisdom and Compassion during Grief, Loss and Transition

R

ev. Ellen Grace O’Brian recently spoke with Rev. Shanti Macartney and 

Dr. Ronda Macchello, as guests on her Unity.fm online radio program, 

The Yoga Hour. The conversation explores how yoga philosophy and 

practice prepare us to handle grief and loss and ultimately, to make a conscious 

transition from the physical body. 
Rev. O’Brian: The spiritual philosophy of yoga defines the higher true Self as 

eternal, pure Existence Being without beginning or end. It is birthless. It is death-

less. Yoga points us to the reality of this essential nature and then offers practices 

to experience it, to verify that teaching for ourselves through direct perception. 

In The Eternal Way: The Inner Meaning of the Bhagavad Gita, Roy Eugene Davis 

interprets the words of Krishna, the higher true Self, speaking to Arjuna, the 

seeking soul (from chapter2):

Never was there a time when I was not, nor you, nor  

these others and never will there be a time when we shall 

cease to be. As one passes through childhood, youth and  

old age in the body, even so, beings acquire another body. 

The wise person is not deluded about this.... That which is 

nonexistent does not come into manifestation; that which 

truly exists never ceases to be.... The True Self is unborn, 

permanent and ageless. It does not die when the body dies.

 

How do we live this truth of the higher Self and let it inform our thoughts, 

speech, and actions, especially during the difficult times of grief and loss? How 

does this philosophy not only inform, but also prepare us for making a conscious 

transition from the physical body? 

Both of you as Kriya Yogis, one as a minister and the other as a medical  

doctor, support others during their time of transition from this physical realm. 

How does your own practice impact the work you do with those making their 

transition?
Rev. Macartney: Twenty-five years ago when I started end-of-life care, I hadn’t 

yet discovered Kriya Yoga. As I first began to witness people as they were passing, 

I noticed that those who had a spiritual practice of some kind seemed to die