The Deepest Love I Ever Felt Came From a Man I Didn’t Know

What Stephen Levine taught me about death, love and living.

S. H. I. T. Rah ! Rah ! Sis boom bah! S. H. I. T !!!!

The grizzle-bearded, punched-in-faced man bounced around, waving two towels like pom poms. It was ridiculous.

And perfect. The severely constipated patient exploded with laughter and there was poop! Stephen had found a way to help him let go.

That’s Stephen Levine to a T. Part jester, part compassionate listener, part sage, all human and a complete old soul. What a shock when I discovered the news while rummaging for a quote of his. Stephen Levine had passed on four years ago.

A strangely deep sense of loss came over me. I did not know Stephen personally and last saw him in the late ’80s. But the ache of discovery remained all day and returns now. The warmth of the memories. The sadness of the void he leaves. The gratitude for his passage here.

Stephen worked with the terminally ill, teaching about death, dying, grief. Difficult, somber topics. But he also taught how to love and be alive. After all, they’re two sides of the same coin. Here’s some of his wisdom.

Detachment means letting go and non-attachment means simply letting be.

Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating, or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something or somewhere different where you are.

Much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moment does not. When there is wanting in the mind, the moment feels incomplete. Wanting is seeing elsewhere. Completeness is being right here.

Tolle long before Tolle. Blessings to Tolle too. Their wisdom comes from the same well.

The quote I was looking for was about pain. A lot of people feel they should not complain or even talk about their pain. They pay people like me so they don’t feel guilty sharing it. Even then, I often have to pry it out.

Look at all the suffering everywhere,” they say, “Mine is peanuts. I should just be grateful.” Stephen has a great reply for that.

We’ve all been should upon enough.

He might also say to that person…

To heal is to touch with love that which was previously touched with fear. We are motivated more by aversion to the unpleasant than by a will toward truth, freedom, or healing. We are constantly attempting to escape our life, to avoid rather than enter our pain, and we wonder why it is so difficult to be fully alive.

Because there isn’t my pain, your pain, or their pain, you see. There is only The Pain and we all have pieces of it. Stephen taught me that.

When you heal one of your pieces of personal pain, you take that out of The Pain and you have helped everyone. But if you leave your pain lying there like a dead fish, it’s going to stink up the joint for everyone else too.

Stephen liked to pass his knowing on through stories. He was a great storyteller and often told on himself. One story about an experience he’d had early in his spiritual exploration stayed with me.

Stephen practiced vipassana or insight meditation. Briefest explanation: you pay attention to the physical sensations in your body and observe where they take you.

Images can arise and during one meditation Stephen realized he had become a woman. He/she was being forced onto a train going to the concentration camps. Her children were wrenched away and guard dogs snapped at her legs to keep her moving. The soldiers shoved and shouted curt orders. He was almost in and…

The bell rang for lunch at the ashram. Stephen broke off the meditation, ate, and came back to his spot as fast as he could. He couldn’t wait to see if the powerful scene would continue. He identified with so much of it.

The scene did come back. The same train station, same dogs, same bedlam. But this time when he looked down, he was wearing jackboots. A cold feeling came over him as he took in the uniform. SS. He was no longer the mother; he was her persecutor.

Message? We have all aspects within us, the good and the bad, the ugly and the divine.

But the thing I remember most about Stephen is something I’d never experienced before or since.

I practiced Shiatsu at the time and had a fair number of clients with Aids. It was early on. I washed my hands with Ajax and gave atomic hugs (arms around each other but not touching) after doing a session. No one was sure how it spread. Sound familiar?

My clients were dying one by one. I went to one of Stephen’s retreats to learn how I could help them. Pretty arrogant looking back at it. Always work on your own stuff first.

And that’s what happened over four days. It was compassionate, mind-opening/blowing, and intense. I learned a lot about myself. In the end, I also learned something vital about working with others.

The only service you can do for anyone is to remind them of their true nature.

I realized my approach had been all wrong. I needed to focus on the person, not the disease. Hold the space open for the potential and heart to come through, mine and theirs. No one is separate in any experience. We’re in it together. Just be. Presence does the rest.

Let me quickly add that this is the goal, It’s now 35 years later and I’ve yet to pull it off consistently. But then, practice sits next to presence.

His wife embodied this. There were always two chairs on the stage, one for him and one for Ondrea. He spoke and she held the space, provided an anchor for him and us. It was beautiful to experience.

Always try to see yourself through god’s eyes.

I would happily settle for seeing myself through Stephen’s. The experience that changed me forever came in the final moments of that retreat. Stephen announced he had a bad back and could not do goodbye hugs. So, he’d created a different farewell for us.

To Pachelbel’s Canon, we turned in a circle, moving from one person to the next. We placed our left hand on the other person’s heart and our right hand over their hand that was on our heart. Then we would simply look into each other’s eyes for a moment or two.

When my turn came with Stephen, He looked steadfastly into me with a soft smile. I felt a love I could never have imagined existed. Heart pouring, soul opening love.

I knew into the deepest part of me that he completely accepted me as I was. I knew he loved me in the most profound way possible. In that moment, I knew what divine, unconditional love meant. My tears would not stop. It was so real. I can feel it now. What a gift.

If you can find the God inside you, you can find the God inside everyone.

He helped me do that. I’ll never forget it.

Death was important to his work, I have to include it. Here’s something you can use.

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Why indeed.

Stephen taught that death was nothing to fear, but something to help us live. Because after all -

Death is just a change in lifestyles.

Shine on Stephen. Shine on.

You can learn more about and experience Stephen’s and Ondrea’s later work here : Levine Talks

Click here for his books and audio work. This is not an affiliate link.

Many thanks to Vasu — Jon Seskevich for the photo and his amazing work and wisdom

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