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RIP Baba Hari Dass
#4
Quote:A celebration of life for Baba Hari Dass, the silent monk
  • [img=955x0]https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/STC-L-mzbaba-1008-01.jpg?w=523[/img]
The sun rises above Mount Madonna Center atop the Santa Cruz Mountains as a Shraddha ceremony for Mount Madonna’s guru Baba Hari Dass gets underway Sunday morning. Shraddha is a Hindu ceremony help the souls, of loved ones who have died, enter the next world safely. Its name comes from the Sanskrit word that means “anything or any act that is performed with all sincerity and faith.” (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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By [url=https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/author/mairav-zonszein/]MAIRAV ZONSZEIN
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PUBLISHED: October 7, 2018 at 5:00 pm | UPDATED: October 8, 2018 at 10:26 am
WATSONVILLE — About 1,500 people gathered Sunday morning at the Mount Madonna Center to commemorate Baba Hari Dass, the silent monk, teacher and guru who died on Sept. 25, at age 95 in his home in Bonny Doon.
There were people of all ages in attendance Sunday, many wearing white, who came from the Santa Cruz area, as well as across the country and Canada to pay their respects to the man known to his students as Babaji. There was a serene, somber and intense atmosphere, with a combination of bells, chants and the sound of the wind filling the air.
Ward Mailliard , who goes by his Sanskrit name Sadanand or S.N., is one of the founders of the Mount Madonna Center who lives and teaches there. He explained the ceremony is an ancient Indian ritual conducted after a person dies, or “leaves his body.” There is a period of mourning that lasts 12 days and on the 13th day a series of offerings, known in Sanskrit as Shraddha, are dropped in the water or buried, as a way of letting the person go.
[Image: STC-L-mzbaba-1008-02.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1]A bamboo ladder conveying the ashes of Baba Hari Dass is brought into Sunday’s ceremony at the lake at Mount Madonna Center. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
The ceremony began at 8 a.m. near the center’s community building, where a group of six men of various generations assembled a small ladder made of bamboo. Hundreds gathered in a circle, watching and chanting. One of the veteran members of the community served as master of ceremonies. The man called J.D. – an acronym for his Sanskrit name —  explained that the ladder symbolizes the Babaji’s physical body. The ladder was wrapped in red and white cloth, and his ashes were placed between the cloths and then carried to the lake in a procession.
Once at the small lake, J.D. asked that everyone turn off their cellphones. “The idea is to bring a concentration to this most sacred of events,” he said. Babaji “created this miracle we all stand in today.”
The lake symbolized the Ganges River in India, where Babaji’s ashes will be taken and spread in November. The bamboo ladder was then burned by the lake, representing the process of detachment, as hundreds of the Babaji’s disciples sat in silence, occasionally chanting. J.D. and a core group of disciples of various ages sat on a platform by the lake and prepared the offerings that were thrown into the water. They included black sesame seeds, mustard seeds and flower pedals, which he said represent “love and positivity.” Flower petals were then distributed to everyone, who took their turn tossing them into the lake and saying a prayer.
[Image: STC-L-mzbaba-1008-03.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1]Around 1500 people gather Sunday morning at Mount Madonna Center to honor Baba Hari Dass. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
Chella Devoe, 37, was one of those in attendance Sunday. Originally from Santa Cruz, Devoe lived at Mount Madonna for nine months to do a Karma Yoga training a few years ago and currently studies Ayurveda there.
“I have travelled a lot, and I only lived here a short time, but the depth of connections that happen in a community like this, a sense of family connection and community that I think a lot of the world needs,” Devoe said. Asked if she ever met the Babaji – who was already living off the property when she she first arrived, she said, “There was an opportunity to if you wanted, but I didn’t feel I needed to. I felt him in all the people that live here.”
There were altars and shrines set up around the property to commemorate Babaji, including a picture of him beside the little chalkboard he used to write on in the room where he would sit and teach. There was a palpable sense the community was at once grieving the loss of this person they considered a god and who had an intense effect upon them, but at the same time celebrating his legacy and trying not to attribute too much importance to him as a physical being. Cathy Conway, a longtime student who lives at the Center said the Babaji conveyed the message, “Don’t follow the teacher, follow the teachings.”
S.N. said of the Babaji, “He could communicate a lot in few words. He wrote once, ‘without reflection there is no learning.’ In that short sentence he taught me a tremendous amount about teaching.”
S.N. said he will remember his teacher as “a person with tremendous self-discipline, who worked hard for the benefit of the community and people around him, and never expected anything in return.”
 

I didn't go. I thought about it but I had to unplug the bathroom sink.  Or at least, try to unplug it.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Messages In This Thread
RIP Baba Hari Dass - by Drunk Monk - 09-25-2018, 03:57 PM
RE: RIP Baba Hari Dass - by Dr. Ivor Yeti - 09-25-2018, 11:20 PM
RE: RIP Baba Hari Dass - by Drunk Monk - 09-27-2018, 09:42 AM
RE: RIP Baba Hari Dass - by Drunk Monk - 10-08-2018, 02:22 PM

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