THE ETERNAL JOURNEY- A chapter from my Life with my Father... Tomorrow it shall be a year since Dad passed away... I still remember, as if it was yesterday... about seven years ago as I sat in the main alter of our home and ashram, in my prayers... deeply in tune with the divine.. a voice spoke to me-- not an imaginary voice but a very audible voice said in my ears, Give your father Mukti. I was taken aback at the clarity of the message but not surprised, since many so called unexplained events happen on the spiritual path. To me it was normal. My visits to Delhi to my parents home, after moving to Dubai, were sporadic, but suddenly after the Voice of God(Literally) spoke to me, it was as if a plan of sorts was unrolling. My trips to Delhi increased and my interactions with Dad took a new turn. He was a man unique in his view of life. He called himself an atheist not believing in an external god or the worship of idols through rituals. For him true divinity resided within and so I think he was a believer and certainly not an atheist. A man who normally listened only to himself... suddenly he was asking me many questions and looking for guidance. Late into the nights he would ask me about Death... about Prayer... about Faith. And I would talk and be led to explaining it all to him in the most logical, scientific yet spiritual way. He was a man of science and was an artist at heart so my answers were balanced between the two ways of approaching the topic. The chats extended from late nights into his painting time where he would put on his music...Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and other Hindustani Classical Legends, singing in the back ground, while he painted and I spoke. I truly believe that it was not me who spoke... I was merely a medium being used to slowly bring him to ease with the preparation of his departure. Dad was at one time fearful of death. He would say, what has not been seen or explained is unknown and going into the unknown for him was difficult. It was as if in every visit all he wanted was to hear me talk... Car rides, vegetable shopping,late nights,painting time... any time was good for him. The most beautiful bond was growing between us where for the first time in our journey together he was listening intently to me and I was without any sense of the I or doer ship was being led to slowly nudge him on towards acceptance of what was to come without the need to be fearful. My father was my child now and I was being given the role of a patient and loving parent. On one such day of chatting, I told him of my desire to have a painting of a Neem Tree. We had spoken at length about my faith in Shirdi Sai Baba. I told Dad that Baba used to sit under a Neem Tree and since Dad painted such beautiful trees could he paint me one. Those who walk in deep faith would know that these are not just events they are guided happenings. Dad jumped up ready and immediately we went to buy the canvas and some colors. From the very next day he started researching images of Neem trees. I let him take his time... In that time he had many discussions with me about Baba on the phone... He took the holy book of Saibaba the Saicharit from my mother and read it... He asked me to send all the real life images of Baba and mail them to him... One day he said it was done... Now it was about figuring out how the paintings would come from Delhi to Dubai. About a few days after the call from Dad, parents of an old student of our guru here at The Music Ashram, called to say they were coming back to Dubai after having spent two years in Delhi. I asked them if they could bring the paintings... Being such loving and kind people they said they would be more than happy. Dad got the paintings packed and drove himself to their home to deliver the huge packet. The paintings arrived and when I opened the packing I was in tears... There was no Neem Tree... There was way way more... In one painting he encapsulated the life of Baba with such detail and symbolic significance that it literally speaks and in the other he brought out the soul of Baba when HE would take his walks in The Lendi Park in Shirdi . Both the paintings were like as if Baba himself had come in. I knew in my soul Baba had brought my Dad closer to HIM-self-- the act of getting him to paint was the channel to bring him closer. My last visit before he passed away the topic of our chat and his questions were about Lord Shiva and his significance and the significance of shloka chanting. I was guided to speak on both in great detail explaining the correlation between the universe and the human being...the significance of the AdiYogi in our being... sound vibrations of shlokas and their impact on our chakras... the benefits of listening to chants... Somewhere inside I knew that time was coming close... If the discussion was now on Lord Shiva, the Adiyogi HIMself... I had to be ready... I am told thereafter Dad started listening to the chants of Lord Shiva while he painted. In this last trip he told me that I will need to be there for my sister and mother and that I am in a way his son. That I must take my sister to my homeopath... that I must make sure that maa was looked after... I smiled and laughed and told him not to worry and that all will be fine and will be looked after... And so... when the news of his passing away peacefully in his sleep came, while we were in USA with my sister... it was as if I knew... I said to myself- so it has happened. We spoke to him that morning( what was the night before he went to sleep in India) from my sisters home... I sensed that something was amiss... I kept asking him if he was alright... the voice, the vibration in his voice, the unsaid dialogue between his response of I am alright somehow resonates till today... I carried that unspoken dialogue and silence all day, that day as we went to the mall, laughed our guts out, four of us jammed in a photo booth...laughing hysterically as we drove... and the call came... The unspoken was now the truth and reality... He was gone... The silence was revealed... From there to the time I completed all that I had promised I was operating from another world. Months of intense sadhana( Kriya Yoga Meditations) and the powerful presence of my guru transported me to the world of intense energy vibrations in which... from the time we came back to my sisters home, boarded the flight the next day, landed in Delhi,entered the home, going to the morgue to bring Dad home, singing to him as he lay with peace written all over his face,chanting along with the pandit, cremating him and then finally as per Hindu rituals breaking the skull for his final Mukti... I was guided through it all completely in tune with the other world... His energy guided me to find every password for documents... for working through all the financial hurdles along with my sister, my brother-in-law, my husband... I was single minded and intensely focused to making sure all the promises were fulfilled with the utmost sanctity,love,devotion and togetherness. The day it was all done his energy which I felt all through, as if he was leading me, left... I knew he had transited to the other side and that he was happy. I have felt no grief, no loss and so sense of separation maybe because since that day when the Voice Of God spoke to me... I only felt immensely blessed, I have only felt a oneness with Dad of the kind thats difficult to put in words... The oneness being so strong that when I lay in hospital with fatal dengue after coming back from Delhi, between life and death... my Near Death Experience took me to the other side where I saw my father waiting for me, in a celestial palace of vibrant light, full of the most divine music... He waited with his back turned to me... I hesitated to cross the threshold waiting for him to turn... I waited for what seemed eternity... He did not turn... Had he turned I would have walked towards him and joined him... But my time had not come and so he did not turn... I saw him and returned. And so here I am, sharing this chapter with you so that whosoever reads it feels the love and understands at a deeper level that Death is really the other side and extension of life and there is nothing to fear, there is no loss if one accepts and opens oneself to beyond the physical. Oh I have felt his absence not the loss... The absence of our chats... The absence of his excitement when Jahan goes to University... The absence of someone who finally got me, knew me the way no one else has... The absence of a soul mate with whom one can bare ones all... When I feel the absence I go back within... to feeling blessed that I was chosen to travel a significant journey with an exceptional father. That no matter which chapter was being written in the story of my life, he was there and that in the end the chapter with him got wrapped up with the deepest possibility than one can hope for... With the most vibrant and beautiful ribbon... A gift given to me by the Lord HIM-self. Paintings by my father Dr. Man Mohan Chaudhri
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 07:59:49 +0000
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