Sangha of Auspicious Companions

A Missed Goodbye, or Perhaps Not

Ten years after her father’s passing, Swasti Bhattacharyya visited Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram in rural central India, a few miles from where she grew up. As a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave, her father instilled a sense of belonging to the ashram, and Swasti was excited to reunite with the sisters she had known in childhood. She missed her father, and upon arrival at the ashram, found she had barely missed the traditional cremation and ceremony of one of her dear friends. But many more tender rituals with incense, flowers, singing, and chanting, soothed and reminded that “death is but a passing into something new” and that her friend “remained present with them.” One of the rituals involved placing a handful of ashes and small bone pieces in a special copper vessel in the ground in an area called a samuhik samadhi within the ashram of those who have passed on from this life. Swasti felt a sense of peace when she was invited to include some of her father’s ashes in this ritual. “Life continues. There is no need for goodbyes.”

Be The Change

Take a moment to appreciate the rituals in life that lend poetic beauty, peace, honor, and presence to one’s eternal being.