Send Him My Love and Blessings by Angelo Druda

Part 2 - Divine Compassion and Friendship

In late 2001, I decided to return to the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in northern California. Before I left Australia, I arranged a final visit with Bernie.

We had dinner with some friends and watched Bernie's favorite movie, Black Narcissus, a story about Christian nuns serving in India.

Before I left that night, I made sure to have a few private moments with Bernie. "You know, Bernie," I said to him, "if you begin to die, you should just let go into the Guru, and Adi Da Samraj will be there for you. You know that, right?" He looked at me with the clear eyes of recognition. "Yes, I do," he said. I knew then that he would be all right.

Several days later, while packing, I decided to give several educational videotapes of Adi Da Samraj to Bernie, who I knew would make sure that people saw them. I called him and arranged to drop by briefly and leave the tapes with him.

As I turned the corner to Bernie's street, his girlfriend ran out his door in a panic. We both ran back up the stairs to Bernie's apartment. Paramedics had just arrived. There he was in his shorts, lying on his back on the living room floor, looking cold and blue and dead. The medics immediately went about the work of trying to resuscitate Bernie's heart.

As they worked, I sat there and invoked Adi Da Samraj, sometimes laying my hands on Bernie in between the electrical shocks. At one point, the medic turned to me and said, "We don't usually get them back when they are like this." I nodded in agreement. Bernie's body looked finished.

They then made an incision in Bernie's chest in order to manipulate the heart with an experimental device of some sort. And then, suddenly, while the medic pumped his heart, I felt the profound Spiritual Presence of Adi Da Samraj fill the room.

I spontaneously put one of Bernie's feet in his girlfriend's hand as I grabbed the other one. I heard myself shouting, "Come on, Bernie" as the Divine Light of Adi Da Samraj came crashing down from Infinitely Above — right into Bernie's chest. Bernie's place was turned into Avatar Adi Da's Sacred Domain.

The room was still and thick and "Bright" with the Divine Presence of our Guru. The medic who had been working on Bernie's heart turned around to me and whispered, as if not to disturb the peace, "I have a little heartbeat." They rushed Bernie off to the hospital, which was only a block or two away, and finally give him the bypass surgery for which he had been waiting.

Hours later, the surgeons came down to the waiting room. The operation had been a success. Bernie's heart was beating well, without any mechanical help. They feared, however, that the period of oxygen deprivation had damaged Bernie's brain. The hospital graciously provided us with a private room so that we could do for him what we do when a devotee of Adi Da Samraj is dying.

We sat by Bernie's bed and we invoked the Divine Presence of Adi Da Samraj. Our vigil continued for hours, as devotees took shifts to ensure that there were always several people there, meditating with Bernie.

That room was turned into a temple of devotion, as Bernie lay there, totally still except for the beating of his heart and the rising and falling of his lungs and chest. We couldn't tell whether it was night or day in that windowless room, but the "Brightness" of Adi Da Samraj poured in from everywhere.

We could feel Bernie's psychic presence around his body and some felt that he might be confused. It was then that I realized that I had to tell Adi Da Samraj about Bernie and let Him know exactly what was happening.

Via email, I wrote a letter to Avatar Adi Da and told Him all about Bernie. I told Him that Bernie was the best missionary for Adidam that I had ever met.

The letter was transmitted to the Hermitage in the United States where Avatar Adi Da was residing. Our Divine Guru quickly sent back instructions for us to let Bernie know that He was sending him His Love and Blessings.

Adi Da Samraj's instructions were relayed from across the world, through our community channels, and into the vigil room. A devotee leaned over and spoke into Bernie's ear: "Bernie, Adi Da Samraj sends you His Love and Blessings."

The bliss and "Brightness" in the room became magnified when those words were spoken and people began to weep quietly in the beauty and heartbreak of the event. Several moments later, Bernie's heart stopped beating, and then his chest rose and fell for the last time.

As I rode the elevator to the street, I realized that I had just witnessed a most profound demonstration of Divine Compassion and Friendship. Bernie's lifelong wish had been to receive the personal Blessing and Acknowledgement of Adi Da Samraj, but his sense of worthlessness had prevented that from taking place.

Yet not even death can break the bond between devotee and Guru. Adi Da Samraj had come down into Bernie and woken his heart, for just a few hours longer — Adi Da Samraj had kept Bernie associated with his body and its physical environment long enough for his life's desire to finally be fulfilled.

Bernie seemed to be "around" his body for several hours after clinical death, but by early morning it felt like he had moved on. Bernie was now off somewhere, I thought, entering into his next destiny, and deepening, I hoped, his devotion to Adi Da Samraj.