letter from Braja

[Guest guest]

Dear devotees:

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

The following is a letter written by Braja Sevaki. Please honour it in the

mood in which it was written.

 

Much love, Madhumati devi dasi

 

 

So many thoughts -- I don't even know if I can make myself clear.

Everything is now -- now is the pain, now are the tears, this is the path I

am forced to now take, this is the result of the years I spent with him,

these are the contents of my heart, my mind....they are jumbled, painful,

glorious, painful, uplifting, painful, sweet, painful, painful, painful....I

can do everything for him and nothing without him, and that doesn't work. I

don't even know what it means. He has gone from being an 'external

consideration' into the deepest recesses of my heart, my mind, my entire

being. I feel infused with him, and bereft without him. He is closer to me

now than he ever was, but farther away than I want him....my heart is broken

into a thousand pieces, each of them filled with pain, yet it is also full

of him. So many discrepancies....and overwhelming all of them is the

understanding that time ran out, Time took him and I can't take him back,

time back...once more, just once more - one minute. I'd give everything and

more for one minute....one precious moment, and I wouldn't waste it, not a

milisecond ...but it's out of reach, yet I have him eternally...my plans are

futile, any moment they can be smashed, yet they're for him, my final email

from him is now my life's instruction; a casual 'download' became the rest

of my life, his final words to me, final touch..

 

I miss him. I simply miss him. The coverage of his samadhi ceremony too, too

tragic, too real, too graphic...but necessary, welcomed, so grateful to see

that face, even in samadhi, those feet...too much to take.

 

I want to give and I want to take and every second of the day each need

overrides the other, overlapping. I feel surrounded by love and isolated all

at once.

 

Everywhere I turn I'm without him, and every moment he is within me,

unavoidable, permeating every atom of my being, every part of the ether. One

man in life, divided into the hearts of thousands in his passing. This is

truly the grace of Krishna, to take away so much and replace it with so much

more, something so much deeper. No question "am I ready for this?" No

choice, no time, no answer. Just a choice that is made for me -- now or

never, all or nothing. "Nothing" became a huge void with his passing --

"nothing" before was tiny compared to "nothing" now...before I thought I

still had choices, now I don't -- he's given me life, and taken away the

choice of maya, of illusion, of nurturing material desires in my heart, of

protecting my anarthas, of avaisnavism, of turning to the wrong answers in

my frustration -- took it all with him when he left, and left me with truth,

reality, substance, love and then more love, and the absolute surety that

the pain won't pass, but it will fade, and all through it he will be there,

stronger and deeper and more of everything than he ever was before.

 

It comes in highs and lows -- absolute self-absorption followed by absolute

desire to give him everything, full surrender, mind heart and body...soul.

It wouldn't be sentiment to say everything I am he made me, everything I

have he gave me, everything I was he saved me from, and continues to do so.

It's bigger than I am in every way -- as though it encompasses the entire

universe, not just my mind or heart...too big for me to conceive of,

understand, participate in. Little drops of something -- understanding,

mercy, love -- come my way, but I'm none the wiser from one moment to the

next on how to do this, how to think this, how to be except be something for

him.

 

My heart is open, so wide open, the contents splashing with alarming clarity

into the open, revealed, yet I feel safer, more secure, more sure than I

ever have that what is left in there is simply what he planted, nurtured,

brought to flower against all odds amongst the blackness. And more, it is

constantly being filled with the love of those around me, those who are

writing, phoning, praying, sending their love. I can feel every single

vibration, every murmur, every syllable of the maha-mantra, and I know it is

only because my heart has a new tenant, whose presence I long to honor,

protect, hold as my life's only breath...I want to guard my heart; protect

it from everything, those things I allowed so readily to enter which pierced

the root of what he gave me, withering it, blackening it, endangering it

almost beyond repair, but for him...

 

I need to hear, to feel, to know those around me with the same pain;

encourage those who don't want to feel it; give succour to those who feel it

more keenly than I do... need more than anything for that pain to unite us,

to strengthen us, to honor him, his life, his departure, his mission, his

love for me, for all, for Prabhupada and Krishna. I just need help.

 

with love

Braj

(Text PAMHO:5334481) ------

 

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