September 8, 2015

Today is my father's 4th disappearance anniversary. Someone asked if we're going to visit, meaning go to the cemetery. I answered "He's not there." 

But i have to admit that saying that requires mental effort. the conditioned mind, which is so used to identifying the person, my dad in this case, as this short frail guy who looks like Rudy Fernandez, resists to let go of the idea. 

thinking about it i realized that the visiting of the remains, bones and hair and some rotting flesh, is our helpless attempt to cling on to something when pictures and memories fail to fill up the void left by sorrow and lamentation. so if that would hush someone's sadness for a while i have nothing against it. i may even go and light a candle for the sake of familial camaraderie. 

but i choose to cling on to something real. believing that the person is inside that sarcophagus or pantson or whatever for me is blind faith. you have to convince yourself he is there for it is maddening to try to figure out where the person is. let's convince ourselves he is inside that cement box resting in peace. and this candle will be our loving remembrance of him translated into matter. after that we go home pacified ourselves with the thought that we have visited dad in his new address ie land of the dead. then we can go on with our lives. 

I believe he is not there. what's there are what he left. my father was not these bones, or his name on the tombstone. he was part of these yes but after he left these just became exactly what they always were: matter. i mean there won't be much of a difference if i take out all his clothes and light a candle around it, i mean thats less gross than putting candles around his bones right? 

my father is not inside that box is not faith, it's science, it is truth. it's same as saying that he is not his old t shirts and socks and neck ties, he used these but he is not these. this is a long subject and ill jump to the point: i liberated myself from sadness and lamentation by remembering the absolute truth that my father is not his dead body, that he is the person, the spiritual spark of life inside that body. of course I miss him so much but it is not enough to drive myself crazy and talk to the dead ie stone, bone, carcass. because my father never died, he just left his body, that's all. he is somewhere very much existing and alive. i know i may not see him again but that's life in this world: for one who is born death is certain. so there. 

let me close this with a powerful verse from the sacred Bhagavad Gita imparted to me by my spiritual guide Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa Prabhupad to whom i am endlessly grateful for pulling me out of the well of lamentation over the death of my father and the inevitable coming deaths of loved ones:

the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna said:

"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be."

BG v 2 chap 12. 

Jai Gurudev. Haribol! _/\_