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Wed
4/30/2008
Dear
Friends,
Greetings
of love and peace.
I
have just received a call from Dr. Mohinder Singh
informing me, with great sadness, that Dr. Nirmala Deshpande has died
unexpectedly after having recently returned from a trip.
Though
she was small in physical stature, Nirmala Deshpande was a spiritual giant, one
of the world's foremost Gandhians, a Member of Parliament, and a cherished
leader in the URI community in India
and around the world.
Our
colleague, Rev. Heng Sure, writes from the Berkeley, CA,
Buddhist Monastery:
“Nirmalaji adopted all
our Buddhist youth in Rio and taught them
Interfaith vision. We kept the relationship alive over the years. She told me
she dreamed in Chinese and thought she must have been Chinese Buddhist in a
past life.
She will be missed.
Here she is at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery four years ago, stirring things
up with the truth, as usual.”
I
last met with her this past September at dinner with Mohinder, Hira Paul Gangnegi, Walson Thampu and Mark Mancao, hosted by Swami Agnivesh, as we made
plans for the URI Global Assembly to be held in Mayapur, India,
in December.
I
remember Dr. Deshpande being, as she always was, so alive and filled with
energy -- both deep spiritual energy and the practical energy to effect change
in the world.
She
will be deeply missed in India,
in URI and in our world. I invite your prayers and meditations as she passes
from this life to the next, and joins our beloved Dr. T. D. Singh, Fr. Louie
Dolan, Dharma Senanayake, Eboo Oka and many others who support URI from a
celestial CC; and as those left behind celebrate her life and mourn her
passing.
If
you would like to see a picture of Dr. Deshpande and to learn more about her,
you can visit her website.
Blessings,
Charles
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