Thank You Tribute to Our Teacher

Oh Rama, most nobly born, you were perfection incarnate.

In the 16 years I knew you never did I see you do one thing that wasn’t purely Selfless.

Thank you for staying with us as long as you did, even though you were silently suffering and in great pain.

Thank you for the endless meditations, empowerments, corrections, strategies to make us shift our attention, and your endless patience. Thank you for your magnanimous compassion, generosity and love. Thank you for showing us how a warrior of the Kali Yuga should live.

Thank you the most for still being here for us and for leaving us with the tools we need to eventually become reunited with you.

I rolled this hexagram from the I Ching asking about the meaning of Rama’s death as soon as I heard of it: When I read the hexagram, I knew that the “two people” referred to Rama and myself:

"Men [and Women] bound in fellowship first weep and lament But afterward they laugh. After great struggles they succeed in meeting.

"Two people are outwardly separated, but in their hearts they are united. They are kept apart by their positions in life. Many difficulties and obstructions arise between them and cause them grief. But, remaining true to each other, they allow nothing to separate them, and although it costs them a severe struggle to overcome the obstacles, they will succeed. When they come together their sadness will change to joy.

"Confucius says of this:

"Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings.
Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again.
Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words,
There the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence.
But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts,
They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze.
And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts,
Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids."