Cyril Wohrer, author

With the sw****ka or without?

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Compassion in action: 3 secrets for summer 2024 Here, we discuss 3 'secrets' for being compassionate always—not only passively or in our heart, but also while acting in the world amidst the anxieties, the ...

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Here's tough (for me) chapter:

May 2002
North Carolina

For the next two months, I assisted Bhakti Charu Swami in Raleigh, North Carolina. We stayed in a three-bedroom house, where we held informal kirtans and lectures four or five times a month. I had called Maman every second week. I had also informed Papa of her condition.
One afternoon, after ironing some of my guru’s robes, I checked my emails on the laptop that Papa had recently sponsored for me. I noticed a letter from Krishna Gopal—my Bob Marley-loving, half-Vietnamese, half-white friend from New Mayapur. He told me he was going to Poland soon to play bass in a devotee reggae band called Village of Peace, which toured for three months on the Baltic Sea coast. “Our lead singer is quitting the band,” he wrote, “and we need a replacement before the tour begins on June 15th.” He added, “I remember you told me that you dreamed to be in a band like Shelter. Well, now is your chance. I pray that you can come ASAP.”
I remembered the Shelter concert at the Roxy theatre, and I imagined myself on a similar stage, holding a mic to my mouth and singing my heart out for the spiritual benefit of the concert-goers.
After serving Bhakti Charu Swami lunch, I told him about Krishna Gopal’s letter, about the band, about the idea of me becoming their new lead singer.
I said, “What do you think, Guru Maharaja?”
He said, “It's a good idea, Chandrashekhara. And you like to sing.”
He said, “Go!”
His answer surprised me.
I ran to my laptop and wrote Krishna Gopal the good news. The next day, he sent me audio files of the twelve songs in their repertoire, as well as the accompanying lyrics that I needed to memorize. For the next week, I spent a couple of hours every day listening to the songs, following along, trying to remember the words, aware that I would be singing them on stage in a month.

On one of the following mornings, though, I received a phone call from L.A. It was Janet. She said, “Cyril. Your mother’s condition has deteriorated. She is in a coma.”
“In a coma?"
“Yes. And she is in a clinic in Lucerne, Switzerland."
“In Switzerland?”
“Yes.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me earlier?!” I said. “And what is she doing in Lucerne?!”
“Cyril, your mother made me promise—”
“God damn it, Janet! You should have told me anyway!”
“At any rate, Cyril, if you want to see her, I suggest you go now before it’s too late.”

I went online and scrambled to find a flight to Zurich. I muttered, "Why didn’t you tell me? Maman, why the hell didn’t you tell me!? You promised! You promised!”
One flight was departing that evening. It cost $1,300. The next flight was leaving the next morning, and it cost $900.
It’s only a ten-hour difference between both flights, I thought.
I purchased the flight for the next morning.
I called the clinic in Lucerne and demanded that they put the phone to Maman’s ear.
“She is in a coma, Sir,” a nurse said, with her Swiss accent.
I said, “I know that, thank you very much! And as her son, I demand that you put the phone to her ear, now! Do you understand?”
She relented and a few moments later told me that she had placed the phone to Maman's ear.
“Maman, I know you’re hearing me,” I said, tears starting to glide down my face. “I’ll be there very soon. I’m coming right away. Wait for me.”
I said, “Guru Maharaja wants to speak to you.”
I handed the phone to my guru, who was sitting next to me. He spoke in a soft voice.
“Hello Mrs. Colburn,” he said. “This is Bhakti Charu Swami. Everything is going to be alright. Don’t be afraid of death. You will continue to live. You are eternal, Mrs. Colburn. Now the time is coming for you to let go. Let go and picture Lord Jesus Christ in your mind, with his smile and beautiful, long hair and his arms stretched out to you.”
His choice of words took me aback. He almost never spoke of Jesus. I guessed he was trying to be sensitive to Maman’s Catholic background.
“The Lord is always with you,” he said. “And he loves you, and he is taking care of you.”
He gave the phone back to me.
I said, “Je t’aime, Maman. Je t’aime.”
After hanging up, Bhakti Charu Swami called Murli, one of his Swiss disciples who lived as a monk in the ISKCON Zurich temple. He gave him the address in Lucerne and instructed him to drive there as soon as possible to chant for Maman.
After hanging up, he looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, Chandrashekhara. Murli told me that they'll go be with your mother tomorrow morning.”
I asked him, “Do you think she heard us?”
He said, “Spiritual messages can be conveyed beyond the senses."

Upon arrival in Switzerland, I took connecting trains and buses from the Zurich airport to Lucerne, and finally a taxi to the clinic. In spite of my fatigue and my cramped stomach, I couldn’t help but wonder at the incredible, almost surreal precision of the Swiss public transport system. Each train and bus was on schedule within no more than a one-minute margin.
I smelled rubbing alcohol as I ran to the reception. I heard the noise of wheelchairs and hospital beds clanking and rolling on the hard floor.
I said, "I'm Cyril Wohrer, the son of Tara Colburn. Where is her room?”
The young lady in her blue uniform looked at her screen.
“Room 81,” she said.
I ran down the hall. The door to room 81 was open. I entered. There was only a vacant bed. I ran back to the reception.
“That room is empty!”
By now the young nurse was speaking with another nurse.
“Where is my mother?” I raised my voice.
“Sir,” the second nurse said, “The doctor will be with you right away.”
I yelled, “Where is my mother?”
I noticed a few people around us were looking at me.
This time I screamed, “Where is my mother!"
A doctor showed up. He was around my age, with black hair and square black glasses.
“Sir, you are Mrs. Colburn’s son, correct?”
“Yes!”
“Please come with me.”
I began thinking the unthinkable.
He led me down a corridor into an office. I thought, No. No. No. No.
When he closed the door, he said, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Wohrer. Your mother has passed away.”
“When!? When?!" I said.
“Three hours ago, Mr. Wohrer.”
I put my hands to my face and started crying.
I said, “You stupid idiot! You could have gotten here earlier! You could have taken that earlier flight! You idiot!”
I then thought of my guru’s words and looked up to the doctor.
Wiping my tears, I said, “Were there some monks with my mom when she died?”
I had a glimmer of hope that Murli had been with her when she passed away.
The doctor said, “No; she was alone.”
I closed my eyes and lowered my head again.
“But they did come yesterday,” he said.
I raised my head. He handed me a transparent, plastic, zip-lock bag. Inside was a one-stranded Tulasi necklace. I thought, A Tulasi necklace?
“How did you get this?” I said. “My mom was wearing it?”
“From those two colleagues of yours,” he said. “One of them insisted that we place it around your mother’s neck.”
My eyes widened.
“Doing so goes against the clinic’s policy,” he said, “but they insisted, and so we agreed to place it on her neck.”
“Before she died, or after she died?”
“Before. That’s what your colleagues told us to do.”
My eyes brimming with tears, I shook my head, amazed.
I thought, Tulasi was so kind to her! This doctor doesn’t have a clue about what he did for Maman.
He handed me some release papers to sign. He told me that they would cremate Maman's body, as she wished. The cremation would take place the next morning at 11 o’clock in a nearby crematorium.
He said, "I'm sorry for your loss” and walked out.
I sat back in the wooden chair and looked at the white wall in front of me. My vision was blurry. I couldn’t believe that Maman had chosen cremation.
You wanted your body to be cremated? I said to her in my mind. You wanted to be cremated? I shook my head. You died with Tulasi on!

I journeyed back to the Zurich temple to sleep there overnight. I called Madalena in Milano. I was sure that Maman would want her to be present at her cremation.
“Thank you,” I told Murli when I saw him in the temple foyer.
He was tall and a bit chubby, with very white skin and kind blue eyes that contrasted with his saffron robes.
I embraced him and said, “My mother died with Tulasi beads on her body – thanks to you. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
I requested him to go with me back to Lucerne the following day to do kirtan at the cremation. He agreed.
I called my guru in North Carolina and described the events.
He said, “It's better that you arrived after her passing, actually, Chandrashekhara. She was probably more aware then. She could see all that you are doing.”
A tear formed in my eye.
He said, “Now, you can generate her good fortune by what you're doing for her — the cremation, taking her ashes to Mayapur, putting them in the Ganges.”

The next morning, as we were driving on the A4 highway, Murli turned to me and said, “I have to tell you something, Chandra.”
“You won’t believe me," he said, his hands on the steering wheel. "But your mother appeared to me in my dream the night before she left her body.”
“What?” I said.
“When Ajita and I came into your mom’s hospital room, she was already in a coma. But we still chanted for an hour—”
I said, “And that’s when you asked the doctor if you could put that Tulasi necklace on her, right?”
He nodded.
“But listen,” he said. “It was late; we didn't want to drive at night. So we decided to sleep in the car, in the clinic's parking lot. In that way, we could chant again another time for your mother the next morning. During that night, three times I had the same dream of your mother.”
He stressed the words, “Three times.”
He said, “It was the same dream all three times: Ajita and I walked into her hospital room. She was awake, sitting up in her bed and smiling at us. As I got closer to her, she reached out and squeezed my hand. She said, 'I'm so happy that you're here.’”
“Come on, I said. "You're joking.”
“I swear, Chandra. Three times in a row; the same dream. We walked in, she was awake, she smiled, she squeezed my hand, and she said, 'I'm so happy that you're here.’”
I had read in the Bhagavatam about unembodied beings, about yogic powers. I had experienced a ghost. And Bhrgu, back in L.A., had often talked to me about his fascination with studies on out-of-body experiences and on kids who claim to remember their past lives. But Maman?!

When we walked into the lobby of the crematorium, I spotted Madalena and Béatrice. Their eyes looked bloodshot and puffy. Madalena was blowing her nose in a white handkerchief. They got up from the black sofas. We embraced.
In a raspy voice, Madalena said, "I'm so sorry.”
The crematorium technician, in his black uniform, led us to a small room. It had one large, flat window. On the other side of it, I could see a row of large, steel-plated, rectangular structures that looked like shipping containers. I figured they were the furnaces.
In the center of the small room, one meter away from us, there was an open, lacquered, wooden casket. Inside the casket was Maman’s body.
Beatrice burst into tears. Madalena hugged her. I held her hand.
Maman wore a beige linen dress. I was sure she had hand-picked it and had instructed that they dress her in it. I looked at her face. Her eyes were closed, and her skin looked a bit yellowish and more opaque than usual. I could've sworn that her facial features expressed both struggle and peace. Perhaps they were a mixture of the pain from the death experience combined — maybe, just maybe — with peace from what she experienced after death?
I had brought a plastic bag with a large flower garland from the Zurich Radha Krishna deities. I also had a bunch of Tulasi twigs and my small, plastic jar of tilak. I placed the garland around Maman’s face, making sure it lay in symmetry on her chest. I scattered the Tulasi twigs around her body.
I sat next to Madalena and Béa. We stared at the coffin and Maman's body. Murli stood near the door.
I thought about how Maman, at age thirteen, had struggled to escape communist Yugoslavia with her mom. Her dad had committed su***de in a communist prison, Maman had told me. He preferred to take his own life rather than to be a traitor and disclose the secrets of the N**i resistance against Stalin's red army. Maman had spent ten months, incognito, in a Catholic nunnery in Austria. A year later, she and my grandma had somehow managed to immigrate to Pasadena, near L.A. They were broke and neither knew English.
The suffering is over, Maman, I said to her in my mind. The struggles of this life are over.

My voice quivering, I began to sing the Hare Krishna mantra. Murli sang on the response. Still singing, I walked towards the back of the casket. Maman’s head was at the level of my waist. I opened the tilak jar, put the tip of my ring finger into the yellow, wet clay. I paused and looked at Madalena and Béa. Would they think bad of me for putting tilak on Maman’s forehead and for chanting Hare Krishna now? Hadn’t Maman told them that she felt resentful that I had become a Krishna devotee?
I’m her son, I reminded myself. I’m the one responsible for for her soul.

I sang a bit louder. I latched on to Murli’s voice when he sang back. I placed my finger at the top of her nose and, applying pressure, moved it back towards her hairline. I was surprised that I was okay with touching Maman’s dead body. Her skin was soft, but it was cold. I then moved to her side and applied more tilak, this time on her nose, trying to sculpt a flawless leaf motif in the least amount of hand movements. I imagined how she would react if she were alive. Maybe she would laugh at my grave attempt to make the motif look perfect. Maybe the touch of my finger would tickle her nose and she would giggle. Looking into a mirror after I had applied it, maybe she would laugh and say, “This looks so strange, Poopie!” Maybe she would even say, “Poopie, this looks beautiful on me, actually! I’m a devotee, Poopie! You helped me become a devotee!”
I took a step back and looked at her.
You look wonderful with tilak, Maman, I said in silence.
But why only now, almost against her will, at the time of her own cremation?
Regardless, Maman was now ready. She had tilak on her forehead. She had a blessed garland around her face. Tulasi twigs would definitely burn in the fire along with her body. Krishna would notice. He would have to notice.

Still singing, tears brimming in my eyes, I nodded to the crematorium technician. He closed the casket and pushed it through the door leading to the furnaces. He told us that we should stay inside the room and watch through the large window, if we so desired. I stood with my face next to the glass. I could see my eyes in the reflection. I took out cymbals from my pocket. I struck them to a slow rhythm that matched my voice. Murli was still singing. I felt grateful.
Madalena and Béatrice are also going to get spiritual benefits from hearing Krishna’s name, I thought.
We sang back and forth in a simple melody, all the while looking at the technicians place the casket inside one of the furnaces. A sliding door shut the opening and one of the men then pressed a large, red button. There was a loud engine sound, and yellow flames appeared behind the opaque window of the furnace. I turned to Madeleine and Béatrice; they were sobbing. I imagined the flames burning the wood of the casket, burning the flesh and the bones of Maman’s body, reducing everything to grey ashes.
Where is Maman going next? I thought. Is she going to take birth again? In what body? Where?
I remembered the claim from the Padma Purana that one attains a "permanent abode in the spiritual abode of Vishnu" by being cremated with Tulasi.
I prayed to Maman.
"Maybe you’re going to heaven before me," I whispered. "Maybe you’re going there before me, Maman."

The furnace stopped making noise. The flames died out, and the opaque window went dark grey again. I escorted Madeleine and Béatrice to their car. We embraced and I thanked them for coming.
Murli and I returned to the lobby and sat on the black sofas. I felt strange having to wait there, like in a doctor’s office, not to see a doctor, but to receive the ashes of my own mother. We kept singing the Hare Krishna mantra, though, back and forth, back and forth. The employees didn’t seem to mind. I wondered how it was possible for them to at least appear so callous towards death. Who knows? I corrected myself. Maybe they are very spiritual people in the privacy of their own homes. I can’t judge them. I don’t know their consciousness.

The receptionist called me to the front desk. I had to fill out some papers. He told me that Maman had paid for everything. The man reiterated that she wanted me to deposit her ashes in the Ganges.
“I know,” I said. “I know. Thank you.”
He handed me an elegant, dark purple urn and said, “My condolences, Sir.”

Murli and I were silent on the drive back to Zurich. I stared at the urn, which I had placed on my lap and was holding with both hands. It felt cold to my touch. I wondered if Maman had picked out the color. She probably did, I figured.
I pondered at the fact that all that remained from Maman’s body was inside that jar - ashes; nothing but ashes. Now I had to bring them to Mayapur.

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Here's a cool, tentative book cover for "American Krishna: A Memoir," thanks to Dhanjaya/David in El Paso, Texas, USA.