Embalmment

I offer my humble obeisance to you Gurudev. Rev. Sri. Sri. Om Swamiji. Wishing you love, good health and peace 🙏

Young , broken, old or perished , it’s never ever  too late to dignify and respect this gifted life.

Whether we belong to different culture, caste, creed or sect, the one thing that remains common with all is…Life and Death. How noteworthy or magnanimous we make it entirely is in our hands.

We do speak of a life experience full of its stories, its emotions dark and light but strange as it may sound many times we avoid even speaking of  death. It does make one feel heavy. . The tragedies, separations one encounters  takes days and months or even years  to recover from the loss of our dear ones.

Even after the departed souls leave we keep lingering on to their presence and passionately long to speak to them. I can speak from my experience of losing  my dear ones in the car accident. I do keep repeating of the sudden demise of my family because unknowingly their death taught me to live and experience life to embrace and honor my death graciously when it comes. The journey certainly has been tough for me  but definitely not worth giving up.
I still remember that very moment  during the last rites of my parents taking place and  the priest asked me to heart-fully speak to my father’s body and offer prayers just before his cremation. However hard I tried I could barely do anything . I could least understand why these deaths happened. The moment was traumatic and I felt even though I held my ground I had lost everything , even my senses.

I broke down looking at my loving Father’s face which seemed too sticky to touch and I felt he no longer belonged to me. And I refused to even see the face of my dear Mother. It was nightmarish an experience . These were my innermost feelings that lingered for years and I still detest  going to cremation grounds or mourning. I do feel that at that point in time I did fall short of probably acknowledging death, and the reason is that we are never taught to deal with it… to deal with this highest truth, which may be timely or untimely.  Death is considered dark and ugly for no one would ever be prepared  to part away from their dear ones. 

Speaking to the departed ones , performing rituals, to collecting the ashes and holding it close to you and then further immersing the same in the holy river , this whole big process too makes one feel like moments of  death …nothing else.   It’s  impossible a human nature to speak to the mortal remains , as all one feels is to just cremate, or bury the dead as soon as the soul leaves the body, for it would rot. 

 I realised that  it requires an immense gratifying space  of solace  within to speak to the departed ones…

The Light…

This piece of post that I am penning down down today felt like I was held by the hand which embraced me to my bigger reality, and I truly wished I had spoken heart fully to my Parents and bid them with prayers and graciousness to rest in peace…while performing their last rites…

It made all the sense as to what acknowledging does to the departed ones when I recently happened to watch a documentary on the excavation that took place in Cairo. I was left awestruck, empowered and it made me bow down to the Divine in Amira Shaheen Professor of Rheumatology in faculty of Medicine, for the way she spoke and acknowledged the bones of the High priest official and his family that were excavated from the Saqqara tomb in Cairo, Egypt.

Amira could tell interesting facts about the lives of the deceased as to how they lived, were they healthy?  Were they happy? Were they sad, by just touching and examining their bones. According to her ‘It feels like rediscovering the walks of ancient history of the past souls who have served the world’.

Best bit is how she senses and feels the bones each time,  as she sits down to examine them.

Quoting Prof Amira Shaheen verbatim….

She first spreads the pieces and then connects to communicate with the bones by looking straight into their eyes as someone live.

First of all, I say “As- Salamvaleykum” (greeting in Arabic that means ‘Peace be upon you’).

I feel I am introducing myself to someone sitting in front of me, even if He or She is in pieces and thank them for giving me the opportunity to meet and serve them from the bottom of my heart. It’s the same way I approach a friend’.

I don’t know how to get feelings from bones, but I can feel it.

And from there,  on she dives deeply and passionately not just into her work, but seemingly her own self. Apart from the external tools that she used what made her presence supremely and softly felt was how she used her internal Divine tools so fearlessly, effortlessly and respectfully in acknowledging those bones. Speaks volumes of a personality who had reached a space of peace that knows to address death so sacredly. There was something more in Amiraa that she carried  than just doing her job.

pic of Prof. Aamira Shaheen at the excavation site.

Life is fragile , handle it well… sense it well…

It makes me bow down to the inner fragility Aamira carried. A life living in Supreme service,  in all sincerity respecting not just this lifetime but lifetimes eternal with highest sentiments that there is nothing to abhor in His emanating world.

Undoubtedly Gratitude and being in surrender of the Divine Light and it’s resources, one is only left all dripped in goodness and our every act only reflects as His radiance.

There couldn’t have been a more heartwarming moment for me to see someone honouring the dead remains in such a soulful manner.

‘Death’… Just be…

Conversations about death deepens our thoughts and feelings, making us considerate and aware to living this life sensitively and sincerely. Life truly resides in it’s simplest intricate details…

Acknowledging our dear, loved ones who have been there through thick and thin, living or departed , a hygge  pat on the back of this cheerful life to being thankful of it’s environmental encounters and it’s overcoming every now and then only keeps us alive and kicking and brightens and lightens in preserving our precious innate gifts with a soft loyal trust.

After all, we are purely walking ourself through each day with a heartfelt acknowledgement full of its mighty privileges embracing that ‘final day of celebration!’

Joy, Love, Simplicity, Truth and Peace, to all my dear OS family and graceful readers🙏

Jai Sri Hari 🕉🙏

Siddhika Umesh 

Pic courtesy : the main cover pic taken by me after a Yagya.