Pictures: Taking Christine’s picture to the Ganges near Ma’s Samadhi Temple & Master’s meditation room.
For the last seventeen years Christine has been diagnosed with various cancer conditions. The symptoms have come and gone 5 times, with good health in between. However the cancer has become more pervasive each time; she has defied all expectations for the length of her survival. She never cared for allopathic methods and has generally preferred alternative care and has received most loving attention from Dr. Chao, Dr. Lucy and others.
During these past months Christine was in the hospital and then back home and then into a hospice care facility. And through all of these years George has given himself 100% in loving care to his beloved Chris. A constant feature has also been Christine’s devotion to realizing God and to God in this form.
One thing of note, in this last year a striking similarity between Christine and Mother Hamilton, to whom she also felt such great devotion, has occurred. Even while in the hospice care there was something in the way she spoke, even in the way that she looked that reminded us so much of Mother that it was a wonder. When I recently spoke to Cate she said that during her last time there, Christine looked so much like Mother!
Before we came to India the question came, should we go on this pilgrimage with Christine in such a condition? However, in connection with this I thought of a past trip Christine had taken to India in which she was passing through a spiritual crises. She sat on the steps of the Ganges in the pre-dawn hours in great distress when a passing yogi started talking to her and told her about Lahiri Mahasaya’s Samadhi Temple just nearby.
You have to understand, yogis do not ordinarily engage people in conversation like that, and in particular a single lady, and that this Samadhi Temple he spoke of is in an ashram that is not that well known and rather hidden. If you know all the circumstances, you would see this was an extraordinary thing to happen, even on the miraculous side.
So, I felt that by going to this Ashram by the Ganges, and other sacred places that we would be going to, all the while keeping Christine in our hearts, would be of more benefit to her than remaining nearby. So we left for India, Carla brought a beautiful picture of Christine and has put it on the altars and sacred places of so many of India’s great spiritual centers.
I had told Christine before we left that what I wanted for her was complete recovery, not just “bumping along the bottom” as her health had been for the past months; she agreed. So she was “expecting a miracle.” I did not have any special thought or feeling as to what the outcome would be for her, only that God should see to it that everything should be fulfilled for the highest good of everyone concerned. So we left for India with that in mind.
As we travelled to sacred sites and met with Saints, Carla presented Christine’s picture with love and light in our hearts. When at Anandamayee Ma’s Samadhi Temple we dipped the laminated picture into the sacred Ganges water there. At Master’s meditation room where Divine Mother and Krishna had appeared to him, and we felt such a powerful Presence, the photo was placed under Master’s lighted picture. So many places like that, to each place Christine was so much in our thoughts, with prayers for her to be completely in God’s Light.
The days rolled on but no physical improvement was felt by Christine. She had hoped for a miracle of bodily health, and we wanted that for her as well. However the day has now come when the soul has decided to vacate the body that was no longer habitable.
When Carla heard the way Christine left her body, thinking of God and chanting Aum, she said, “That is the miracle!” You see, we can think to ourselves about what we will think when we leave the body, but so many unbidden thoughts can come at that time. We can feel fear, regrets, desires, so many things can come to our minds in those last moments.
That is why Krishna prescribed thinking of Him only in life and in death (in this case Krishna is speaking as the supreme, nameless, God of all). For the soul that has cultivated such purity as to remember God in the moment of passing, that one will ascend directly to God and have no need to return to a physical birth.
Swami Muktanandaji asked me to talk about Christine’s passing during the daily afternoon reading. Whenever devotees here come to know of how she left the body, chanting Ram Nam and Aum, their eyes get large and say, “Is it so.” It is the dream of all here to live in such a way to have such a death. They are so happy to know, and then they say, “Please pray for me that I can have that too.” So you see it is a much valued and rare passing.
When we told Swami Muktanandaji, showing her picture to him, he said, “Yes, I remember her.” He listened with deep attention to my description of her passing, then went on to tell of a great saint, Vinoba’s leaving the body (I had read this description just the night before, not long before the passing of Christine).
“He was lying with his eyes closed, his face full of peace, his whole body clean and clear, the only movement being that of breathing and of the feet keeping time with the inward chant of “Rama-Hari” which in the most difficult times had never been interrupted. Just at 9:30 a.m., quietly and easily, the breathing ceased.”
You see when a great soul passes in this way it passes down into legend here in India as a tremendous event. The signs shown by Christine during this time, looking and sounding like Mother Hamilton, her focus upon God, chanting Ram Nam and Om as her last words, these are all indications of a tremendous passage directly into God’s Presence. You see how profound this is.
It is natural to feel the loss of the physical presence of this beloved soul in God. To sit down for some tea, to hear of the latest shopping adventure and what great bargains landed in her lap (usually gifts for others!), her excited description about her meeting someone in the store or at the doctor’s office and finding a kindred spirit to talk to about God, or the terrible decorating scheme here and there and how it could be improved by this color or that fabric etc. I would not be surprised in arriving in God’s heaven that she should have some decorating advice to the Creator about some improvements for his many mansions!
Although we can rightfully feel the loss of our beloved friend, we can also feel happy for her, that she is now free of a body that was not operating correctly, that she had such an extraordinary passing, the loving effect she had on so many people. She said so often in response to those praying for her and thinking about her as she was in and out of the hospital how surprised she was that so many would be praying for her! Such was her humility.
So, both the feeling the loss of her physical presence and the joy of her victory in Spirit can be felt, but in the long run it will be the many gifts of her character and spirit that will live on in us. The best way to honor Christine is to take some of what you love and admire about her and make it a greater part of yourself: her bubbling spirit, the desire to bring greater beauty into this world, to find that special spark in another and celebrate it, to strive for truth and realization with heart, mind and soul; whatever that aspect is, bring it into your life in your thought of her.
We pray for God’s deepest blessings on those who feel sorrow and grief that the healing balm of God’s sweet presence should bring peace and inner assurance that all is well in heaven and on earth. Peace, Bliss, Amen—Om.
Yogacharya David