LIFETIME IN PREPARATION

     

     I am spending time with some very, very old people. One hundred years old or more. My father has moved into a senior community. It was more than I could manage for him at home. He was falling down too much. At home he was attempting to do more than he was capable of physically. Like the long walk that ended with him on the pavement and in the hospital for a week and then rehabilitation for a month. 

     In the senior community he has been safe and no incidents now for months. Thank you. Krishna. It is modern, clean and he gets to eat all the nonsense he has been eating for the last ninety-five years in a dining room that is like a restaurant. I spend as much time as I can with him. 

     Many of the other people are older than ninety-five, one hundred years old and more. They are in varying degrees of capability. Some of them cannot do anything. The other day I sat with him during lunch. The other people at his table did not talk at all. They sat there with dull looks in their faces. It could be some of them are sedated. The man next to me could hardly lift his spoon to his mouth. The woman across from us couldn't hear. The other man on the right was alert but just didn’t want to make any effort to communicate at all. My father is very friendly and just kept talking to all of them anyway. It was his 95th birthday and I had a special cake made…no eggs and no sugar (he has diabetes). It had to be a big cake, enough for everyone... fifty-five people...more than I could bake. A lovely husband wife from Finland have a small family bakery nearby and she made a lovely cake. Whipped cream topping with fresh strawberries cut to look like roses and blueberries all around the edges. She was very sweet and delivered it herself even though it wasn’t part of the original arrangement. It wouldn’t fit in my 1991 Honda civic. So everyone got a piece of the special cake. It was as close as I could get to prasadam distribution under the circumstances.

     We don’t see very old people during the day in the US. They are in these special communities or sometimes taken care of at home. One hundred years is not pretty, but it is the other end of life. Everyone “oohs” and “aahs” to see an infant or very young baby… a beautiful miracle to behold. ..Then there is the same infant after one hundred years....all bent over, incontinent, and moving so slowly you're not sure they are actually moving at all...the dull stare off into somewhere...no smile, no expression...here but not here…nothing to say, nothing to live for, end yet still living. What sense gratification is there at one hundred years? Nothing works. Everything hurts.

     People in the US spend their precious time watching TV and movies and reading novels full of glitz and glamour where everyone is always youthful and always enjoying sense gratification. But this is what is waiting as time runs out. 

      Actually, it is a great blessing to go through that far into old age. The real tragedy is if someone’s life is cut short in their prime. Going all the way to the end like this has its lessons to help with becoming detached from the material identification… All those people and possessions that were so important during material life are gone. Even family members like children are busy with their own material life and rarely come to visit. Everything that was so important, the motivation for acting in the material life… gone. Forced detachment. 

     Better to practice detachment willingly all through life by engaging in devotional service, a lifetime in preparation for being transferred to the spiritual world. The simplest form of devotional service is simply to chant the Hare Krishna Maha mantra: HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE/HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE.