I lost my father a year ago. I know that he was liberated from the old body that tormented him. However, I never knew for sure that he looked upon his death as a spiritual passage to a higher level of consciousness. During his last hours of consciousness, I tried my best to reassure my father that he was going to a better place, for he had a spiritual attitude toward life.

So I meditate on Roy’s death with the belief that he was liberated from his tormented flesh, and I trust that he made the changes in his life to nourish a spiritual life—a new life he could certainly look forward to after death.

Many writings about death cite the carrying to the other world of the things that were worshipped in the previous life. In this way, one who has not freed himself of earthly bondage would still be bound in the afterlife, until his soul works its liberation, perhaps. He would remain, for a while, tormented about satisfying the desire of the flesh without even having a body.

I have faith that Roy’s soul is joyous and free, for he had found the serenity to accept the things he could not change and the courage to change the things he could (including writing a book about it!). He now has the joy of the eternal promises of the world of spirit. I rejoice that he left sober.