Govinddas

Memories of my friend Govinddas

by Anuragi

Govinddas (Peter Schrödel) and I got to know each other when one day he called me to say that he had a bottle of red wine for me which he had brought back from friends in Tuscany. So we met and we hit it off straight away.

We had a few things in common: we liked to talk about classical music and many other cultural things. So we met again and again, mostly to go out for dinner.

The first time I visited him, I cut a bunch of tulips for him in a field of flowers. I rang his doorbell, he opened the door and looked at the tulips in amazement; I saw written on his forehead: But you can’t eat tulips. Then I knew: Govinddas was a gourmet. That was the sensual connecting element between us until the end: going out to eat and talking about everything that moved us – including politics and, of course, Osho.

His spiritual credo was a sentence from Osho: “Tantra, the highest insight.” He often recited it from memory, full of pride and in a solemn tone: “Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols. But to you, Naropa, sincere and true, let this much be said: Emptiness needs no supports, Mahamudra rests on nothing, without any effort, simply by remaining detached and natural, you can break the yoke – and attain liberation.” And I felt that he identified deeply with that Naropa and followed him.

What I deeply admired about him was that he was embedded in a wide and very natural circle of friends. Even when, at the end of his life, he had to be admitted to several hospitals, I kept hearing how his friends remained loyal to him by visiting him tirelessly until he died.

He spent his last years in a luxurious retirement home – another element of his life which was not accidental; although he had lived almost lavishly in earlier times, he had to live more frugally in later years. But, as if it were a matter of course, he ended his journey in this life like a grand seigneur.

He had been suffering from a very malignant cancer. He didn’t want to fight the disease but instead to follow the natural flow of existence. His friend Ralph and I had taken turns at his bedside during his last few days so that he would not be alone just before his death.

When I went to his bedside on October 3, he said something which I couldn’t understand – and I told him so. He looked up, recognized me and suddenly said very clearly and suddenly: “I’m saying goodbye now – see you soon.” I started to cry, which he saw, and then said close to my ear, “Don’t be sad.”

From then on, Ralph and I took turns so that one of us was always with him, even at night. When, at six o’clock on October 3, I took over from Ralph, who had spent the whole night with him, Govinddas was breathing calmly and shallowly. He was no longer aware of anything around him, at least not that I could see. And shortly before eight o’clock, I suddenly realized that he had stopped breathing and had actually said goodbye.

A short time later there was a knock on the door and fellow residents from the home came in to wish him a safe journey. They told me with admiration how he had naturally regarded everyone in the home with impartiality and that he was equally valued by everyone in the home. Immediately afterwards, they returned and placed flowers on his bedspread.

One member of staff said crying, “Why do all these lovely people always have to die?”

That was his farewell – “without any effort, just by remaining relaxed and natural.”

Translation thanks to Mahendra

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