On Thurs 7 Aug 08 @9PM I had a deeply moving and spiritual experience when I lit candles and deeyas for Tibet. This was in unison with everyone in my time zone and done globally. I'd like to explore this and share my experiences with you and hear yours as we participate in universal collective prayer events together. I hope to work together with all the universe's beings as we move toward the ideal of Universal Collective Prayer.

Come join me in Universal Collective Prayer!

May God Bless Us All!

UCP-Universal Collective Prayer is produced by Meady's Musings Production . Copyright 2006-2011

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Farewell Pundit Basdeo (Vasudev) Misir!

Tonight Universal Collective Prayer takes a more somber and respectful note as we salute one of the pioneering pundits of Trinidad and Tobago as he leaves the material plane and remains only in spirit for how long we don't ourselves know. Perhaps he will become one with 'the Universe' forever or perhaps only temporarily so, until he again takes a material form to join us on this plane. At 95 years of age he would have lived through many of the milestones that marked the foundation of Hinduism in Trinidad and Tobago. He would have no doubt worked alongside my grandfather, Pundit Parasram (Parsuram)Maharaj who was simply known as 'Baba' by many on the island and would have been 94 years this February if still on the material plane but departed it in 2004. So basically Pundit Misir and he would have experienced many similar times on the island and in the history of Hinduism on it.

Some members of my family attended funeral rites for Pundit Misir today which took place at the Shore of Peace, Mosquito Creek, Trinidad. However I do not have enough details at the tip of my fingers to write more about him just yet. However I wanted to mark this day.

My inability to just google up info. makes me realize how little there is here on the world wide web about my ancestors and so I plan to do some research about the Pundit and write a longer post soon to commemorate his life. I hope to find many stories this Saturday when I attend a function of the Pundit Parasram School for Hinduism that one of my uncles has set up in memory of his father...my grandfather.

My overall intent (I guess what over on Intent.com would be called my primary intent) for Universal Collective Prayer is and always was to 'play' with all people in the universe and bring them together to dance in Universal Collective Prayer. However I've been realizing like today that I also need to at times recall, reflect, remember or take note of the people who if it wasn't for I'd not be able to make this dance in the first place. So I need to at times give them a bit of my bandwidth too! :) Cause if they didn't set the foundations for Hinduism from which my dance started there would be no dance from me on here.

Of course we all have our own paths to take too so my prayers may not be like how they envisioned it back in their day and my intent is not and never was to disrespect these people or others when I mention them or draw from their traditions and mix it with mines here on the prayers.

So I will soon write more about Pundit Misir. Till then I do a send off to the Pundit on his departure from this material plane in keeping with his religious traditions. I did not know him well personally but I know he was well loved by his family and many who will surely miss him here on the material plane. He also had a large following of 'chelas'* to whom he was a beloved guru and so his guidance, compassion and seva* here on the material plane will also be missed by them. So here I choose a track that I requested be played at my grandfather's send off cause I knew he liked the tune and in particular its lyrics so I hope it will also be fitting for the send off by Pradeep-Dekh tere sansar ki halat kya ho gayi bhagwaan kitna badal gaya insaan...Look at what has happened to your world, O god. Man has changed so much:


Here is a link to a picture of the late Pundit as it appears in a local newspaper here in Trinidad. He is receiving an award to commemorate his seva* to the local Hindu community here in Trinidad.

*my Hinglish version as I pluralize the word 'chela' which is used in Hinduism to mean someone who follows Hinduism fervently or who follows one spiritual master or guru
*seva roughly translates to selfless service to man.

6 comments:

meadysmusings said...

Please check out a blog post that was done in follow up to this post here:

http://rramkissoon.livejournal.com/91622.html

Robin said...

Hi Babita,

I wanted to say thank you again for your post. I am glad to see more people offering, in whatever way they can, the recognition of what a contribution Pundit Misir has made, to the Trinidad Hindu Community as a whole and to their lives as individuals.

I've found a couple old pictures from around 1978-80 or so that I'll scan in and post on my blog when I can. I had hoped to find some better ones, but I think the majority of them from my Janeo ceremony and other Pujas he did are in an album at my mom's place.

Check back on my blog in a few days and I should have the scans up.

Thanks again,
Robin Ramkissoon

meadysmusings said...

Thanks Robin I'm glad you appreciated it...it means a lot to me that I can do something meaningful in that way and have something appear online in a search that perhaps is like a ray of hope when if they searched before like me there would have been almost nothing...and now there is something there...thanks for also blogging about it and I'll check out your blog too...

Unknown said...

Hi Babita,

My name is Jaishree Misir and I am one of the grand children of the late Pundit Basdeo Misir.

I googled my grand father's name and came across your page.

I just wanted to thank you for celebrating the man that was my grand father. A great man he was. His memories and teachings shall live in our minds and hearts forever.

Kinn said...

Hello Miss Babita,

My name is Kinn. I am an Electrical Engineer who resides in the State of Texas. I too googled the late great Pundit's name, after I learned that he had passed on and found your blog. Thanks for recognizing such a great person. I am one of his many Chelas and he was Baba to me and my family. Baba performed poojas and ramayans for my family annually, for more than 50 years. In my humble opinion there will never be another pundit like him. I will describe Baba with a few words Gentleman, Articulate, Eloquent, Accommodating, Caring and Kind.

Thanks again.

Kinn

Thanks again.

meadysmusings said...

Jaishree,
Im honoured to have a descendant of the esteemed pundit comment on my post about him. I didnt know him well personally and so only blogged about him in a spirit I saw akin to my own grandfather's. You are welcome to contact me to do a guest blog here on my Universal Collective Prayer as this would only add to the prayers! :)

Kinn,
Im glad I can be the conduit between a guru and his chela! :)Also if you wish to do a guest blog honour your guru or simply expressing your life and times with him I'd be happy to allow you to blog it here.

No need to thank me for my contributions on here as it is a love and joy for me to carry out this dance that is my Universal Collective Prayer and it is nothing without others joining in...after all then it would not be collective...as my intent has always been for this blog...

So welcome to ya! Thanks for joining the prayers! :)

Feel free to contact me on my email that is on my blogger profile and agian thanks for joining me in Universal Collective Prayer!

PS: Always welcome if you click on the google Ads too...just a small dakshana! via the people at Google Adsense...literally in cents! :)

And Sorry I've not been following up my emails to see these comments earlier!


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