Bye Bye Virendra

This flower in Virendra's living room started to open the day he left his body. We could almost see unfolding its wonderful petals in the stillness of the apartment. The picture was taken the day after.

For a whole week Virendra's body was resting in his room. Friends could come and sit with him in prayer, in respectful silence, singing softly with tears, with smiles.
Prerna opened her house as a temple for meditation. The most powerful meditation I know.
Death meditation.


Yesterday, Wednesday the 4th of February the kind people of the undertaker company took with utter respect the body of Virendra to the crematorium De Niewe Ooster.

There a lot of friends were waiting to give the last goodbye to Virendra.

Musicians sang for ten minutes "There is so much magnificence near the ocean, halleluja".
Followed by ten minutes of silence.
Then the gentle notes of "Fly, fly high, let the earth touch the sky" transformed the silence into a devotional prayers of love, gratitude, and in some ways, so dear to the sannaysin, blissful space.

The following set of pictures may give you a bit of a feeling. I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos. I am not a photographer and my hands were so shaken by the magnitude of that moment and the intensity in the room. I came to know Virendra so intimately in the last days of his life and I was not immune, neither I wanted to, from emotions and tears in departing from his physical form.




You can click the link to the whole set of Virendra's cremation:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29904709@N08/sets/72157613332989329/

or directly to the slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29904709@N08/sets/72157613332989329/show/

After that the body was taken to the cremation oven and some of us went with him to help the casket to enter into the "holy fire".
Srajan pressed the button that lights the fire.

The last piece of his presence in the physical body completely detached itself from it and flew into eternal life with a serenity and a lightness that melted my heart and relieved my soul. We were so deeply moved.

In summer last year three friends of mine died in one week. I wrote a poem that I send to Virendra some time ago.
From an email from Prerna.
"Dear Milena,
I wanted to let you know that when I showed Virendra your BEAUTIFUL
e-mail and read the poem, Virendra leaned back, relaxed against his mountainous pile of pillows and smiled beautifully. It was really very nice and deeply moving. These deaths in our "family" are making us ready for our own great journey.
Much love from Prerna