When typing my seminar “There is No Death,” Sadanandi Dasi, my secretary, suddenly stopped and asked me in her innocent way, “Will you write a poem for me when I have gone and send it to everyone who is dear to me?” Well, with a lot of pain in my heart, I sat down today, only three days after her departure, and wrote this poem for her. In it I try to see things from Sadanandi Dasi’s perspective and say to you what she would say. I pray that she is pleased by it and so are you.
Don’t Cry
If you see me on the day of my death
laying with a pale face in the cold coffin,
don’t cry.
Do you cry when the shell of an oyster breaks
and the pearl rolls free?
Do you lament when the struggle is finally over
and the butterfly leaves the dead cocoon?
This is only one of the evenings of my life.
The sun has set in the west
but somewhere it will rise again
announcing the dawn of a new birthday.
Maybe I have even joined
the dance divine
on the sandy banks of the Yamuna River
in the deathless world.
