Sweet Chaitanya-Lila

Chaintaya-lila left her body today.  She was a lovely person.  When my daughter told me on the phone I couldn't help but cry.  I was struck more than I thought I would be.  At this stage I expected it to happen but was still hoping for a miracle turnaround.  I just saw her son Nila last Sunday at my son's soccer game and know this must be very hard for him.  Every encounter I ever had with Chaintanya since I first met her twenty years ago was pleasant.  I did some astrology for her over the years and she always impressed me with her good nature despite whatever difficulties she might have been going through.  

My wife was diagnosed with cancer a little after she was.  They bonded and gave each other emotional support for sometime.  Chaitanya gave us a good source to get Essiac tea, a Native American herbal tea blend which is known for its anti-cancer properties.  My wife drank it every day for several months.  

Chaintanya fought the disease and never gave up.  We would visit her and even when she was in pain she would be a gracious host.  She told us she wanted to live for her children and was always positive that she would be cured.  By Krishna's grace, my wife's cancer was caught just in time.  Chaintany-lila's case was more complicated.  She tried various treatments, both naturopathic and conventional,  some worked for awhile but the cancer kept its foot in the door.  When she went down to Hippocrates Health Institute, she had an automobile accident and her tumor was hit.  She spent her time there mostly recovering from the accident.  Over the course of months, her condition worsened and we lost contact with her.  I think it took too much energy for her to communicate so much with people.  She spent her last days in Tampa, in the care of her loving her sister Ballavhi.  By Krishna's arrangement, sweet Chaitanya-lila, who I never heard say a bad word about anyone, left this world today for a better situation as directed by the Lord's inconceivable will.  

Separation is a difficult thing.  We are covered over by illusion and conditioned to think we are these physical bodies.  We have  a hard time realizing the eternality of the soul or at least experiencing it practically.  Our vision is marred and therefore when a loved one leaves us we are sometimes bewildered.  I lost my mother at 14 when she was 52 and it changed the way I looked at life forever.  I was very saddened and I wanted answers.  I became a searcher and wanted to know why we live and die and what the purpose of life was.  In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna says "Never was their a time I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." Bg. 2.12  These are comforting words from the lips of Krishna Himself.  When I first heard them I was so relieved.  My instincts were confirmed, the real person does not experience death when the body dies.  

The painful thing for Chaitanya-lila's loved ones will be the separation.  The thought that we will never see her again in this lifetime is heavy.  Of course, we're all standing in line to go through the same experience when our number comes up.  We don't know when that will be but we can be sure it will indeed be called.  So Chaitanya's number was called earlier than we expected but she is really still with us.  Krishna is right next to all of us within each individual heart, so we are also sitting next to each other by His power.  We are packed up together through the potency of Krishna and remain that way even after the body dies.  Chaitanya is now beyond the scope and purview of our limited senses but we will reunite with her one day as we all eventually wake up from this dream of repeated birth and death.