Forever Young
In 1927 while meditating in lotus posture, Hambo Lama Itigelov left this earthly plane. His body, however, did not decay.
On September 10, 2002 the body was exhumed and transferred to Ivolginsky Datsan where it was closely examined by monks, scientists and pathologists. An official statement claimed there had been no decay in the muscles, inner tissue, soft joints and skin. Russian professor Viktor Zvyagin declared “the body is no different from the body of a person who died 12 hours ago.”
Hambo Lama is also known as “The Buryat Nostradamus” and theologians have found a book written by the Lama allegorically in the old Mongolian language in which events of the 1920-1930's are predicted.
Buddhists treat Itigilov as a living person who is in a special state of body and mind, who fully realized Void, or Ultimate Reality and cleansed his body to such an extent that it became incorruptible. He is thought to have bridged the living and the dead, stretching across time and prophesy, religion and science, belief and the flesh.
Tweet- 9-20-07
- Morgan Maher's blog
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another amazing story of preservation...
...is that of paramahansa yogananda, the first hindu yogi to bring a ministry to america.
->As reported in Time Magazine on August 4, 1952, Harry T. Rowe, Los Angeles Mortuary Director of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California where he is interred, stated in a notarized letter: "The absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of Paramahansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our experience.... No physical disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death.... No indication of mold was visible on his skin, and no visible drying up took place in the bodily tissues. This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one.... No odor of decay emanated from his body at any time..."
www.organelle.org
www.truetao.net
Startling
Extraordinary
Imagine if he suddenly yawned and came back to life...
I seem to remember watching a National Geographic docu about Tibetan mummies. As I recall, some of the monks sat bound in extremely restrictive positions for many months, after eating a special indigestible diet of tree bark. When they eventually died the chemical imbalace resulting from the practice meant that they became naturally mummified, and therefore guardians of the community, and a focus of prayer. When the Chinese invaded, many of these guardians were destroyed by the invaders, but many were also smuggled away to the mountains. And there they remain to this day, waiting, watching...holding open the gateways of hope...
I'm not sure how much of that I just made up.
Have thy heart in heaven and thy hands upon the earth - Thomas Vaughan
Radiant Luminosity
- This reminds me of many saints in the West, who, too, did not decompose after death. One main example is St. Teresa. This appears to be a remarkable trait of the enlightened ones. I've recently read "Grace and Grit," a story about the life and death of Ken Wilber's wife, Treya Wilber. Aside from the love story, there is a deep and spiritually transformative relationship that goes on. At her death, Wilber believes, Treya was enlightened. To quote, "The lines that had been deeply etched on her face - lines of suffering and exhaustion and pain - had all completely disappeared. Her face was pure, smoother, without wrinkles or lines of any sort, radiant, glowing." (Wilber 401). In Dzogchen, Wilber mentions, there is a description of the stages of dying. What were the signs of an individual who had become awakened to their true nature?
"If you remain in the Ground Luminosity, As a sign of that, your complexion will be nice . . . And it is taught also that your mouth will be smiling."