rgj,

It's not that his faith disappeared, he just couldn't locate it anymore, tucked away as it were somewhere in a folds of his cerebrum.  Faith is belief-based, a memory-based cumulative construct fed by manifold supporting ideas and experiences.  My Father's experience at the end transcended typical mentation, including his ingrained thoughts about God, Jesus and such.  He was VERY aware, just that his form of awareness precluded access to his mythologies, and was somehow clearer, deeper.  His faith just couldn't keep up with his evolution.

If you have ever witnessed a birth, newborns come to life in burst of energy and awareness, suddenly looking out from behind their shining eyes.  They aren't thinking "Oh shit!  Those are going to be my parents?"  or "Whoa, it's flippin cold out here!".  There is a basic, beautiful, clean awareness, life force if you will, that is now suddenly much more interactive through birth.  Then over time, the 'person' layers on and the problems begin.  It seemed the same with my dad but in reverse, instead he was filtering back to the native awareness that was there at his beginning, there all along, and now the only thing left, until it somehow that too 'left' his body/mind and he was no longer 'alive'.

And so I don't see 'losing his faith' as something negative nor sad, his faith had just become extraneous to the more 'real' basic 'experience' he was now in.  I felt a deep gratitude that he was able to so gradually and consciously shed the artifice of what was to be gone before his essence 'left' as well (death being inevitable and all).

Of course, losing someone dear is complex, and I also deeply grieved with so many parts of 'me' in play, missing this great dad I loved so much, etc.

But earlier in this thread you brought up the belief systems inherent in being a premie.  And in mentioning my Father's death, I am juxtaposing the 'loss' of his religious belief system ingrained in his Christian faith with the same sort of faith of old-timers in Rawat.  And how faith necessarily goes away in the endgames (as well as in depth experiences during life).  Endgames, a sort of litmus test for beliefs.

Since losing my faith in Rawat, I have tried hard to not replace it with another form of similar belief system, however comforting that could possibly be.

'Spiritual experiences', satori's, aha moments and such are wonderful and not necessarily all that random.  It just the tendency to take the easy way out and feel compelled to somehow tie these breakthroughs to something other than what really sponsored them that is insidious, methinks.

Of course, it depends on the individual, but it's an interesting question whether to try to convince an old-timer of their delusions (despite how pathetic these delusions might be).  Whether it might do more harm than good in many cases, no?

M